Manikandan

Human Rights behind the bars. I was so disturbed. Wherever I went in Keralam during my last month's vacation, every wall on the road sides bore so many posters proclaiming this. The Human Rights is serving a jail term in a Bangalore in connection with the serial bomb blasts that jolted Bangalore a few years back. Right now, the Human Rights is getting treated in one of Bangalore's high tech hospitals.

The government there says it is giving him the best possible treatment. I am not sure, if the injured ones in those blasts were getting any treatment sponsored by the government. The sole woman who was killed at the bus stop in one of the blasts did not have any human rights. She is gone. Died like an ordinary human being. The government declared five lakh rupees to her family. Everyone condemned the crime. After that all have forgotten that woman and  also the many others who suffered injuries in the blasts. They all suffer in silence, fully aware that they are not entitled to any kind of human rights.

http://news.oneindia.in/2008/07/25/serial-bomb-blasts-rocks-bangalore.html

I have been to my village  this time to attend the temple
festival there. The other day, I have been to another temple also in the nearby village. There I spotted a male lamb tied to a pole right in front of the temple. One of the devotees of the Devi might have offered this lamb as a mark of his/her gratitude in return to some favours She doled out to him/her. It looked very young and I am sure he had been detached from his mother to please the Devi. The little lamb's cries were surely an indication towards his anxiety to get back to the warmth of its mother's care as early as possible. The lamb's helplessness remained  a small pain in my mind for long. Animals do not have rights, anyway. This lamb would have become delicious mutton biriyani on the next day. This is how Devi's offerings are treated by Her "managers".

My grandma too used to make such offerings to our village's presiding diety, Lord Siva - Ulavaippil Thevar, as He was respectfully called by our villagers. Our grandma had a habit of maintaining a cow at our home. The first one had come to our home as a calf long time back. It grew into a cow and eventually bacame pregnant.

When the cows were on heat, people sent for a bull. Those days, there were bulls maintained by some people somewhere in the near by village. My grandma depended on a neighbour who could trek or cycle a few kilometers to convey the message to the owner of the bull. The bull was made to walk kilometers together wherever his "customers" were in need of him. The cow in turn walks restlessly around the coconut tree to which it was tied to, from the early morning itself. She moos continuously as she walks. Upon sighting her mate by the late afternoon, she calms down. The relief was seen in her looming eyes so brightly. It was a man with a horn-like moustache who used to bring a bull to our home. That face is still so clearly etched in my mind's canvass
 

As the cow's pregnancy advances, my grandma too gets so anxious. She loses sleep in the nights over this pregnancy. Taking care of the expectant mother becomes a priority over we kids. One night, as she was deep asleep, she heard a cow and her calf crying. Suddenly she wriggled out of her bed, woke up her assistant Meenakshiyamma and forced to her to go to the cattle shed to check if the cow had delivered the baby.

Meenkshiyamma returned with no good news. The sound was from the radio. This sound is a part of the popular song in the super hit movie "Aval Oru Thudarkathai" starred by Kamal Hassan. The All India Radio's Renjini programme was on air that time. My grandmother narrated this story several times after this incident. Thereafter, whenever the cow was carrying, she remembered this song and whenever she heard this song, she remembered this mistaken delivery. Now, whenever I hear this song, I remember my beloved grandmother

 

Our cow gave birth to male calfs in most of her deliveries. At times we got chance to witness the delivery. At the end of a few anxious moments, the baby comes out . A bundle of dirt from the womb follows the baby. This afterbirth was supposed to be consumed by the mother cow, but she was never allowed to do so. This bundle was disposed of in the nearby backwaters. The baby, within a few moments of its arrival, is at its feet. We the kids watched all these happenings with great awe. The baby straightaway reaches out to the nipples and there started another life.

The calf celebrated its arrival in style. We too played with it. It ran all around as much as it pleased and then drunk milk as much as it wanted. Very soon, the day has come. Grandma prepared a soft rope with a knot to tie the calf. This was a very simple function. Along with the knot around the neck, the calf got a name too - Manikandan. The first few days' milk is preserved as curd and this is distributed among the neighbours. This is a custom followed in the villages whenever a cow gives birth. Meenakshiyamma went to the paddy fields on the east side of our house to cut grass everyday. I helped her carry the bundles of grass from the paddy field.

Manikandan lived for a few more months. Perhaps till the mother cow stopped yielding milk. We got a share of the milk and the remaining was sold off as milk and curd. My grandma, along with her assistants, mixed water with the milk. I guess, it was an accepted practice in the small time milk business. This milk was dispatched to nearby tea shop and the rest to the neighbours who came with small vessels to buy milk. It was a small time business for her.

Remember this bottle? I am sure many of the kids of the villages in the
yester-years carried these bottles full of milk (and water) to the nearby chayakkadas (tea shops). The tea shop owner, as usual, would have told them to inform his/her mother that the milk was full of water

 As the milk source drains up, grandmother takes Manikandan to the temple and ties him to the tree in front of it. I am not sure if the God was pleased at this act but grandma was relieved and the god's "manager" was very happy. The next day, the manager sells off the littile thing to somebody. The proceeds of the auction would never have gone to the temple fund however. That was how the temple administration went about the God's property in our village. 

 Manikandan was taken away straight over to a butchery. Soon, he would have appeared as mouthwatering beef biriyani in a few restaurants and homes in the locality. His skin would have turned into shoes and bags later on. There ended his story. A sad end to a humble living thing. Was the God really pleased with my grandma's offering? Can't believe so. Another helpless animal dies to facilitate our comforts. Many years later, after another delivery, the cow was packed up along with another Manikandan to another cattle shed. Perhaps, this Manikandan and later on, his mother too would have met with the same fate of the first Manikandan. Here is a drop of tear for that  bovine family. I am sorry, you are not entitled to any Animal Rights please....