Veera Lakshmamma: Or My Uncle’s Story

VEERA LAKSHMAMMA: OR, MY UNCLE’S STORY

(Rendered by the Author from Kannada)

SOME years ago I was stationed at Santaveri in Kadur District. This is a small village on the road between Chikmagalur and Tarikere, built on one of those little hills which form the foot-hills of the Bababudan Range. It is a pleasant enough place for a day or two, but the pleasure palls on the third or fourth day. The peaks of the Bababudan feast the eye, but life in the village is fairly difficult and one has to exert a lot even to get the ordinary necessities of daily life.

One of these is milk and that is precisely the one thing that you cannot get in Santaveri. With no milk, you have also no curds, no butter, no ghee. We had little children in the house. What kind of life could they have without these things? My wife bought the exceedingly diluted milk which could be got in the place for three days, and decided on the fourth day that we should have a milch cow or buffalo of our own. I looked out for a cow or a buffalo and after some time was able get a very good buffalo with a calf some four months old. The mother was young and strong and, though a buffalo, really beautiful. It had big lustrous eyes and the tenderness with which it licked the young one, it was a delight to see. We allowed the calf to drink all the milk it needed and yet had enough for the needs of the household. My wife was greatly pleased with the buffalo and, as it brought happiness and prosperity to the house, called it Lakshmamma.

As is usual in all villages, the buffalo had to go out to pasture during the day. A boy whom they called Bimla was the cowherd in Santaveri. We sent Lakshmamma out with him. My wife proposed to send the calf with the herd. I thought that this might not be desirable. But she said that the calf was so young that it would be unhappy, away from its mother, and would deteriorate in that cold place if tied up in the stall all the time. After some discussion, we decided that the calf might also go to pasture. They were duly provided with bells to their necks. These are bells made out of cocoanut shell and help the cowherd to place straying cattle. My wife warned Bimla to be specially careful about the calf and, of course, he promised. Though I objected to the suggestion when it was made, I must admit that it was a pleasure to see the proud mother stepping with grave dignity on the journey to the pasture with the little one walking close at her heels. It was very like looking at a young human mother walking proudly with her little son up the village street.

For nearly two months, the buffalo made this trip to the pasture and , with the calf, regularly and safely. So regularly and safely indeed that we lost any feeling of danger to the buffalo or the calf. They would go out in the morning along with the other cattle and come in the evening well before sunset. As the herd reached the out skirts of the village, Lakshmamma and the calf would turn homeward and come straight. Lakshmamma would walk into her stall and stand at her place and look towards the mistress, almost as if she invited her to come and milk.

One evening at the end of about two months, the buffalo and calf did not come in at the usual hour. My wife noticed this after some time and wondered why and went out to enquire. The cattle belonging to our neighbours had come . Lakshmamma and the calf seemed to be the only two that had not. My wife enquired for Bimla and learnt that he had come with the cattle into the village and had gone again to the jungle. Why had he done this? He should have noticed the absence of Lakshmamma and her calf and returned to search for them. What a fellow to have gone by himself and without telling the owners! He could have taken help and we should have been spared anxiety. My wife did not know what to do and sent word with the children to me, in my office, of what had happened.

I came to the house in much anxiety and spoke to our neighbours. It was clear, they said, that Lakshmamma and her little calf had been left behind and that Bimla had gone again to look for them. He did not wish to get a scolding; so he had gone after leaving the other cattle in the village. It struck me that this must be so; also that if any of us should go to search for the cattle, we should wait for Bimla. The search would be useful only in the area where the cattle had grazed in the day, and to go there we needed Bimla as guide. So we decided to wait for Bimla and, in the meantime, got hold of good stout sticks and some lanterns and persuaded a friend in the Police Station to accompany us with a rifle.

One hour we watched for Bimla. I could not believe that any hour could be quite so long as that one was. Every second of it seemed to insist on having all its value and move in slow deliberation. The boy, however, turned up at long last with a face that was the picture of despair. My wife wanted to scold him for his carelessness and for having gone away again without telling us that the cattle were missing. I restrained her. The boy was already sufficiently upset. To scold him would have merely upset him more, and that might make the search for the cattle more difficult. She agreed and desisted.

In a few minutes the four of us who had decided to go out for the search, with the Police friend with his rifle, and with Bimla for guide, set out to the forest where the cattle had grazed that day.

We reached the place soon, but saw that the search was likely to be long and not easy. The cattle could have gone in any of twenty directions. We went down a number of ways and came , unable to make out where the buffalo and calf had gone. At one particular instant, I thought I heard the buffalo’s bell and proposed that we should go in the direction of the sound. But it was then rather late and, before we had stepped ten yards, one of our friends said: “I do not believe it is a buffalo’s bell. Any moment, going down these lanes in the forest, we might come face to face with a tiger. We have only one rifle for the five of us and should be in danger if a tiger came along. We do not now if the buffalo and calf have not, after some wandering, gone to the village. Our wandering in the jungle cannot help them and meanwhile our wives in our houses will be feeling anxious about us. I think we should get to the village now and come in the morning and search.” One man said this. And the others seemed to concur. The buffalo and calf were mine. How far should I insist on these friends risking their lives in searching for my property? If they were prepared to search, I could be with them. If they were not, I could not force them. As for leaving them to return and searching for the cattle by myself, the thing was simply out of the question. So, after a few minutes of deliberation, we all turned home.

The night was a very sad one for our household. “What a silly thing I did,” said my wife, “sending the calf with the buffalo! That foolish creature must have strayed into the forest and then, because it went, the mother must have gone after it; and now, in all likelihood, they have been killed by a tiger. What an intelligent creature Lakshmamma was! How pretty the calf was! They finished the time that they were destined to spend with us, and have now gone to pay their debt to some wild beast.”

The position was bad enough without this vivid picturing of what had happened to the buffalo and calf. What their loss meant was brought fully home to us in the milk that again perforce was bought from outside. The children were so unhappy that they would not take their meals. With great difficulty we persuaded them; and, as for ourselves, in order to satisfy my wife, and my wife, in order to satisfy me, both pretended to eat a meal; and, with our sorrow for pillows, lay down to a rest that was no rest. Throughout the night I seemed to myself to sense Lakshmamma and the calf feeling the claws of the tiger. I suppose my wife had the same feeling.

In the morning, as soon as it was light enough, I got up and called to our servant and started out with him for the jungle. My wife came out, looked disconsolately towards the buffalo’s stall, and stood near the doorway watching us go out. Not knowing what was in store for us, or knowing for certain that it was nothing good, neither of us had the heart to utter any word of cheer to the other.

Reaching the jungle I walked again with the servant down the paths which we had explored the previous evening. The result was no better. As we stood undecided, I fancied I heard a buffalo’s bell. It was the same kind of fancy as I had had the previous evening.          “There,” I said to the servant, “I heard the bell.” The servant gave me a look compounded of some pity and a good deal of wonder at my stupidity. How could a buffalo and calf, left in the beat of a number of tigers in the jungle for a whole night, be alive in the morning to sound their bells? There was no need for him to say this to me, as I knew it myself. Yet there was this illusion.

This is how we are made. Our hopes give rise to illusions and we yield to them willingly; and they encourage our hopes. But for hope and illusion, men could not live.

Over a furlong we traveled in the direction of the sound, crossing a somewhat thick belt of trees and shrubs. Beyond the belt was an open circular space. As we stepped out of the belt into the open space, I saw a buffalo right in the middle of the circle. I could not believe my eyes. I thought my illusion was persisting and looked again. No, it was not illusion. It was a buffalo sure enough, and a little beyond it there was lying on the ground a something very like a calf. As I stood for a half minute, taken aby the vision, the buffalo, which at first had its face away from us, turned in our direction and I saw it was Lakshmamma. I was overcome by joy. I do not suppose that I would normally run to meet anyone. I ran then, calling out “Lakshmamma!” Previously I had not thought of the buffalo as anything more than an animal that gives milk. But that moment I realised that we were two fellow-beings and that I was deeply interested in Lakshmamma’s joys and sorrows. I had not previously touched Lakshmamma. But in this auspicious moment I walked up to it and touched it with that joy with which I might have touched a friend.

Lakshmamma was a grave and dignified creature. It was not given to show its feelings. But that morning it also seemed to feel unusual. Just after a moment’s hesitation, it responded to my greeting and extended its snout towards me. I noticed several injuries on Lakshmamma’s body and its horn-tips were stained with blood.

The servant was dumbfounded when he saw the buffalo alive and standing. He looked all over the place and made out what had happened the previous night.

“Sir,” he said, “this is a miracle. A tiger came here last night and the buffalo fought it. Here is the circle in which the tiger and the buffalo moved, we do not know how many times. It should have been a small tiger. In any case it preferred to attack the calf as the surer prey. If the buffalo had been here alone, it would have attacked the buffalo. Also, the buffalo would have been half dead from fright when the tiger appeared. But because the calf was here, the mother took courage. Who would believe this, Sir? The mother kept the tiger away from the calf, going round and round and round, and must have gored the creature once or twice. After this, the tiger should have thought better of it and decided to come again later and run. See here, Sir,” he said, running his fingers along the tip of one horn of the buffalo “this blood on the horns, and here is the tiger’s hair sticking.”

This surmise seemed quite correct. We could see the marks of tiger having, gone all round the calf, and just beside these marks were the marks of the heroic mother’s hoofs.

If the surmise was all correct, it was also not merely a case of the mother having saved the calf but the calf having saved the mother too. For, if the calf had not been there to tempt the tiger and stiffen the mother, it would have been all over with the buffalo.

The thing was indeed a miracle. The servant brought the calf to the mother, and together we brought them into the village.

The whole village trooped to our house to see this heroic mother buffalo and the young one which she had saved. My wife cried for joy and, lest the mother or the calf suffer from the evil eye, put some saffron on their face and waved red water before them and burned broom sticks. There was no need for this, however, for every household felt as if the buffalo and calf belonged to it and had returned from the jaws of death to make it happy.

Later in the day my wife said: “What a heroic creature our Lakshmamma is! I have heard of Veera Thimmamma, the heroic mother of the royal house in our village, having saved her state from enemies. That is why she came to be described as ‘Veera.’¹ Our Lakshmamma is like Veera Thimmamma. Not mere Lakshmamma but Veera Lakshmamma.

And we called our buffalo ‘Veera Lakshmamma’ from that day.

¹ Valiant.