The following is the autobiography of a cow that is to be slaughtered on the day of Eid Al-adha, an Islamic festival commemorating the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail to Allah.
|
My life was enviable to many of my fellow cows. I would receive a substantial amount of food every day. To say nothing of the abundant water for drinking that was always put at my disposal, I was even able to take bath in the nearby canal almost every day. My master was one in a million. He had, indeed, an innately kind disposition. He would pat me on the back, whenever he would milk me. And in reward, he would take me outside to the field to graze me to the capacity of my tummy.
But the beautiful days of past have long gone. At this moment, I am standing by a tree, to which I am attached with a strong nylon rope. And to make matter worse, before me is standing a man, with a sharp knife, whose blade made of steel is gleaming with the sunny beams, streaming in through the leaves of the tree. I am yelling, nay crying, to invoke my master’s sympathy. But he will not hear me, for he has sold me to this stone-hearted man. How did I end up here, by the way? Please, lend me your attentive ears, to which I will narrate my story from alpha to omega.
As cows we are, we should not be cowed by circumstances.
My days were indistinguishable from one another. I can recall that sometime, I was not able to keep pace with the time. I would often waver between whether I have taken my breakfast or this is another pretty day and I should take. A while after the cockcrow, my master would emerge from his house, coming forward with a bucket in his hand. He would simply sit down by me and begin milking. In a few minutes, he would stand with the bucket which was now full of milk. The question would then hit my mind, where does the milk come from, given that I have never drunk such a thing in my life, not to mention when I was a kid?
He was a gentle, but rather calculated man. He would often look at the bucket, and a smile would spring up from his lips. He would then pat me, as I have mentioned earlier, and take me to the field, which harbored green grass. But now, I smell a rat. I think, wasn’t it as whenever I would produce a large amount of milk, he would smile and graze me for a long time. And whenever, it was the other way round, he would seem in a bit of hurry and leave me half hungry. Due to this, I should begin hating him. But I am kind of a wise cow. I believe that everyone in the world espouses the same principle. Give and receive.
It never came to my mind that one day, I had to say goodbye to him. But, alas! one day that happened. I was being furnished with the grass in the pasture that half a dozen of men appeared coming towards me and my master, who was leaning against a tree. They came to him, and he shook hands with them. They talked to him in a too low amplitude voices, but I was able to catch a sentence from the conversation. They said, “We are looking for a cow to buy.” My master smiled, which seemed to me unusual, as many of those days, I had plummeted the milk. It made my mind wobbling with a question: what had happened that he laugh?
Meanwhile, they had moved to a nearby tree which had comparatively wider shadow, under which they sat. A couple of moments later, one of the men stretched out to my master a bundle of notes. One of the men, who was not as old as one would say, came to me and caught my rope. That all was spontaneous, he didn’t even look towards my master. If you ask me to hunt for the memories of that day, whether I knew that something ominous had happened to me. I must avouch that I had soon come to know that I was sold.
In a few minutes, I was standing in an open truth, looking down on my master, who didn’t even look at me. Rather he was smiling and was in exchange of gossip with the others. Then, the driver started the engine, and the truck hit the road. I, on the other hand, was looking back at my master, who was now calculating the bundle of notes. A real calculated man. What do you say, wasn’t it a betrayal? I had served him for so long that I would sometime call it ‘time immemorial’.
In an hour, I was in a new village. I found many other animals of my race. All of them with rather pale faces, has a story of their own. We were betrayed. We were duped out of our precious wealth, the milk, which was supposed to be drunk by our kids. But we had to remember that beggars can’t be choosers. What they wanted, had been done to us and they were happy.
One day, I was drinking water that I perceived some kind of sound. I raised my head out of the bucked and looked about me. Standing near me and weeping in someone’s memory, was a cow, who was now a neighbor of mine. I would like to rush to her, but I felt that I was no more free, so I asked her at a distance what was the matter. Wiping her tears out of her face, she said, “I remember my child.” She further said that she had given birth to a child. I hadn’t even seen him walk himself when those people came. She pointed at the men, in whose hands were lying our fates now. There was a defect in mine, she began, that landed me here. I had some natural problem, due to which I would not put out considerable milk to feed my child, let alone to fill their pockets. I was quick to know that she was alluding at her masters. Listening to her, made me sad. I told her that you had to give milk, if you wanted to receive a few days of life. I further said, “As cows we are, we should not be cowed by circumstances. And that, in a few days, we will be happy somewhere else, having sacrificed for some exalted design.”
Sorry, I can’t put up with this pain. I have been made to lie on the ground. My feet has been meshed with strong ropes. A dozen of men have kneeled upon me. And something sharp is being drawn on my neck. Worse, I can see now a few drops of blood, gushing from my neck. Sorry, I have to leave my story half told. Bye.
The writer is a matric student, who aspires to become a fiction writer.
Congratulations. You got it right!MashaAllah
ReplyDelete