Carcass

Nath was a few months shy of 18. And yet his long sturdy legs and three inch long mustache eliminated all doubts in the minds of even his harshest detractors. In merely his first month, he had managed to rescue 14 bullocks, not a mean feat in the organization’s ledger sheet. His opponents would watch him perform the feat, their mouths more often than not dropping with awe, at how his feet would slip in through the darkness, how his alert eyes would identify the most co-operative beast of the lot and then slip out of the same darkness. They expected this efficiency to deteriorate. They expected his luck to eventually corrode. Someday he’d meet his match. They had all met them. Men stronger than them who had overpowered them, broken their bones, almost killed them and then taken their animals back, tilting the balance in the favour of the universe. But Nath stayed unbeaten.

However, sometimes he made demands to accompany the bullocks on their ‘freedom ride’, claiming an instant attachment to the animal he had managed to rescue. The demand may have been innocent but their organization operated on a protocol. The ‘rescuers’ and the ‘transporters’ were mutually exclusive. The boy had a long way to go before he’d be allowed to be a transporter. “We will show you his pictures and you know what, you can give him whatever name you want to.” And somehow that offer seemed to be sufficient. Shankar, Ganesh, Akbar, John, Nanda, he was told, were all very happy with their respective new lives.

The organisation members did not know much about Nath. He rarely spoke about his parents, but did mention an older sibling whose gender was never specified. They also never got a satisfactory answer as to why a man as young as him was so passionate about a cause that was almost universally despised. But they set aside this ambiguity in favour of the dependency they were beginning to see on him. Suddenly, he was giving them more time to spend with their wives, and their girlfriends, and their brattish children who would never share Nath’s passion, their passion.

Hence, on Nath’s first work anniversary, they decided to promote him to a transporter, certain that his passion conquered every other practical criterion that they had once considered obligatory. Much to their surprise, instead of looking excited, Nath seemed baffled, as if this was something he had never expected to hear. But the tentativeness was soon gone. His face flushed with recognition. Their hearts fell back in place. 

Nath patted Rajesh’s hump as they rushed towards the little lorry. Rajesh was young, almost like an overgrown calf, yet he had the urgency of an adult. Nath wondered if he had sensed his impending end in the shed, crammed with the other aged bovines. The mere thought made his stomach churn. This was exactly why he had put himself on this path of incomprehension. No one stood for these bullocks, no one worshipped them. He moved closer to Rajesh, putting his arm around the quivering body. Rajesh was going to get his due. He wasn’t going to die sliced by a butcher’s knife, he wouldn’t end up as a carcass dangling alongside other carcasses.

Nath had no idea where he was headed. His route was laid out to him only in a set of unnamed left and right turns. Nath found this strange journey even more strangely liberating. Yet, the fear of being caught loomed large despite being trained well by his cohort, particularly for such a scenario. If he would be stopped by patrolling police or anybody else, he had his excuse mugged up. The calf was his sister’s dowry. All of it seemed blatantly ridiculous. Nath was flummoxed. 

But no one stopped him, a fact that his colleagues would attribute to his luck once again. After 15 left turns and 10 right turns, finding himself on an unpaved road that could barely fit his mini truck, he narrowly escaped falling off the edges. Nath struggled to navigate his way through the darkness, the inside of his head blank with apprehension. Out of the blue, he started missing his parents who he scarcely saw these days. He thought of his sister in whose verandah he spent most nights. All of a sudden, he wanted to be with all of them. Just then, Rajesh’s bellow tore through the silence, through the noise in his head. Nath felt himself shiver, first with terror and then with relief. He wasn’t alone and he was headed to a better place.

When the mud road ended, Nath found himself amidst the nauseating smell of raw dung. As if sensing just that, Rajesh bellowed again. Nath darted towards the door, suddenly unable to wait. His heart leapt at the prospect of seeing Shankar, Ganesh, Akbar… He realized with a start that he had forgotten the other names. But he let that disquiet pass. How did it even matter? Whatever their names be, they were all alive and with the others of their kind, away from the cruelty they did not deserve.

Holding onto the rope around Rajesh’s neck, Nath walked up to what he thought was the entrance of the shed. His eyes still unable to adjust to the darkness around him, he waited for some human form to stop him, to guide him. Instead, as he closed in on the distance, he only saw silhouettes coalescing into an incomprehensible shape. But he continued to walk, half-expecting a miracle, half-expecting to escape. Rajesh freed himself from under his palm and rushed inside. Nath scrunched his eyes and then felt them widen as he saw rows of the same wretched animal, some standing, some barely able to sit themselves down, and the rest lying down in the midst of their own muck, their bodies seemingly not bothered by the passing of time or life inside them. Even through the dark, he could sense their bonded deterioration. Nath looked around, as if expecting an explanation. His last task as a transporter was to make sure Rajesh was let into this shed, into ‘final safety’. Nath’s mind refused to let go of the two words. Final. Safety.

He wandered around, not wanting to know which of these bovines were the ones he had rescued, not wanting to acknowledge the feeling of sickness in his gut. He thought of Saamasir, of Baba, of Chato, of Laxman and every other man he had come to befriend in the last one year. Suddenly, every memory in the presence of these men seemed to be built on a precarious foundation. Nath looked around. He had to be quick and he had to do this on his own. Of course, he was terrified. He had no inkling about what his future would look like. But he was only 18. How many people would have the liberty of so much pending time! Nath felt a sudden gush of relief that he could not afford to waste. He hurried towards Rajesh, pulled him closer. “We are not leaving you here.” He whispered into Rajesh’s ear as if certain that the animal would understand. But Rajesh refused to let himself into his grasp.

Nath’s face twitched with indignation. He put his arms around Rajesh’s neck, and began to walk towards his lorry. Rajesh whisked his head out of the grip once again. Nath stopped, more confused than annoyed now. Rajesh had taken a few steps backwards. His head was hanging. His beautifully curved horns gleaming in the dark. “Come with me you silly bull. I can’t leave you here to die. I did not save you for this.” Rajesh turned to look at Nath, as if each of these words had made sense to him at last. Nath moved closer and clutched the rope with his right hand, his left hand generating the rest of the strength needed to shake Rajesh’s feet off the ground. He had only turned his hand when he felt a sharp kick on one of his thighs. He let go off the rope instantly as his eyes turned into saucers. He would have to run. He could forget all of this. He could pretend none of this had happened. He could… Before his feet could lift themselves off the ground, Rajesh’s legs found them once again. Two consecutive blows and Nath was lying flat on the ground, surrounded by hardened dung, dried out twigs and stench of piss. Rajesh was charging towards him with his horns. Nath found this extremely unfair, he screamed and then screamed some more.