A Tale of Castrated Bull

                        Existentialism, Feminism, Marxism, Post-Colonialism and Psychoanalysis of Bull

He starts from point A every morning and by the time of evening when his eyes are uncovered, he finds himself again at point A. But he has a sort of satisfaction that he had a long journey that day, maybe he missed the scenery on the way, but the satisfaction and smile on the face of his master tells that he has really performed well. This had been his routine for many years and he has walked thousands of miles, and if his blindfolds were not removed every night, he would have thought himself to be on the other end of the Earth. Thankfully, his master took great care of him after his work was done, massaged him, gave fodder, gave him a bath if required, and saw that he was comfortably settled in the stable. At his Bovine family, he was looked upon as someone drafted for good and not only his mature counterparts of the opposite sex, but even the heifers could know that he was good for nothing and turned their faces away, when he grazed with them in the pastures. He cannot forgive the one who had one fine morning removed his vital part to convert him into that which changed his destiny. And he could do nothing about it. God was great, but man was mischievous.

Now nothing matters. All beautiful heifers have no meaning for him. Even his nose is permanently obliterated to identify estrus. May be his long walk would lead him to land where he would regain his lost bullhood.

How strange it is that his female counterparts never claimed that equality with them that his master's wife always demanded with her husband. His counterpart females were contended with milking, propagation and ultimately being served as beef. Not that he finds any difference in the life of his female counterparts and that of his master's wife. The comparison is endless and he was astounded with parities. The only thing he doesn't know is that his master's wife would be chopped when she goes sterile or they would wait even longer, when she is finally of no use. If this disease of equality spreads in his bovine family, he is sure it is going to create a havoc. His cousin and even his real younger brother were spared by his master, who only gelded him of his vitality. His neutrality of gender had made him stoically neutral towards all issues pertaining to life- or even death for that purpose.

His endless walk is very purposeful. He knows by the smell of sesame, groundnut and mustard. Many times master or his little son has exclaimed with happiness. Once master told his son  the story of Sisyphus. He was a king who could even cheat the God of death. He was ultimately condemned to drag the boulder uphill and let it roll down and then drag it up again till eternity. The child had innocently asked "Is our Joe (well, that's his name) also Sisyphus"? He was very intent to know what his master thinks about him. But like all masters he too laughed it off. No good master should reveal his true opinion about his servants. A confused servant serves a better purpose than an opined servant.

Once he met a maverick colleague in the grass field. He was liberated by his master, but he was feeling abandoned.  He felt desolate and rejected due to identity crisis. He always took pride in being owned by his master, though when he was serving, he always cursed his master for being cruel and hard task master. Now when he was independent he remembered all the good qualities of his master. How much care he took of him, kept him warm in chilling winters and fed him good fodder even when he fell sick. Others took pity on him and tried to help him out, but he was also too arrogant to accept the help of others. Everybody thought he had no future, till one winter evening a lady who looked affluent by her carriage and dress, stopped near him. She found he was shivering so she asked his coach to find out that if there is no owner, he should be provided with shelter and fodder. Liberation always leads to some other kind of slavery. Frankly speaking, there is no true liberation. One amazing thing he found was that these affluent people always had a lot of pity for all types of our kind, but little or no mercy for their own kind. After some time he found that his colleague waited anxiously for the lady to take his care. He had gained good health, there was meat on his bones and he looked more well fed than his fellow grazers. What he did not know was that a group of wolves from nearby woods was making a conspiracy to attack on him at night.

Thankfully, he(Joe) had a short memory. Most of the time he lived in present and had no obsession to repeat what has happened in the past or to dream about what may happen in future. He could retrieve a few things from the immediate past, but that was all. He was truly happy with kind of mind set. He disliked his master when he mentioned very old incidents with great fondness or talk about prosperous future which would never come. He saw his short memory as a boon. It not only saved him from the vices of revenge, greed and anger, but also, prevented him from making silly mistakes like his master, who sometimes forgot to cover him with a blanket in the cold winter night and he had to shiver the whole night. May be he wanted to punish him for walking lethargically that day.

{The oxen are still being used in rural India to extract oil from oilseeds, where ox goes around an improvised wooden grinding machine. The oilcakes formed after extraction of oil are consumed by human as well as animals.}

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his unpublished book  'World is Conical'

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