It’s been two days since Bhairav has not returned home with
the rest of the gang. He is still too
young to play truant like his older ‘cousin’ Balaram who is now two and half
years and already a young bull. So whilst we are not unduly worried when Balaram
does not return home for a day or two, we were concerned about Bhairav.
Manjunath searched for him on both the days
with no luck. On the third day, he
arrived looking rather tense – “Bhairav has fallen into a well” he said.
Oh no! What kind of well – fully or partially dug? Was there no embankment?
How deep? How much water is there? My questions tumbled out before he could
answer even the first. “It is a dry well
and not too deep” he answered. Oh
no! A fall onto hard ground could mean broken
bones. I was almost in tears, but Manjunath
assured us that he wasn’t hurt.
We rushed to get a
good length of strong rope from the boot of our car, Manjunath hauled the
ladder onto his shoulders and led the way across the fields which were now dry
post the rice harvest. Some had the rice stubble in them and some of them
had been ploughed for a second crop.
From a distance, the fields look so perfectly level, you feel you can
run over them, but the stubble, the upturned clods, the narrow embankments made
it impossible to even keep pace with Manjunath and Revathi who had joined in to
lend a hand. They walked briskly – it is
a similar path that they walk every day from their home to our farm.
 |
| Manjunath and Revathi leading the way. |
We soon came to a clump of bushes and Manjunath set the
ladder down. I was looking all around for a well when I realised that the clump
of bushes itself was growing out of the well.
A perfectly camouflaged natural ‘trap’!
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| Would you believe this clump of shrubs is concealing a well? |
I could not see anything in the dark depths, but when I called out to
Bhairav, his plaintive voice echoed out and I could see his eyes gleam as he
raised his head to look up at us.
Manjunath got busy wielding his sickle and cleared out a
place so that the ladder could be lowered and he could climb down.
Our 20 feet
folding ladder was luckily long enough to just reach the bottom of the well.
That meant Bhairav had fallen to a depth of 20 feet!! It was just the dense
growth of shrubs in the well that had saved him. But I couldn’t be sure he was perfectly okay
till I could see him properly.
By now Manjunath had climbed down and Vivek had
lowered the rope into the well.
Mahaveer, who was working in his field nearby came to assist us.
Manjunath
tied the rope around Bhairav’s belly like a harness and Bhairav panicked. He
had never had a harness around his middle ever and this was too much for a
frightened, starving guy to bear! He
went crazily in circles in the closed confines of the well, the ladder started
toppling over and we were worried about Manjunath.
But luckily he paused for a
while and Manjunath untangled the rope from around the ladder and swiftly climbed
out. The ladder was hauled out before Bhairav decided to run a few more crazy
circles. Now the need for brute strength!
Four pairs of hands hauled the ropes up and a
kicking, protesting Bhairav was dragged out of the well.
We had to hold him
down to undo the makeshift harness of ropes and barely was the last one removed
when he broke free and tried to run.
In
all the excitement I just realised that he was perfectly fine – no broken bones
– just a terribly hungry, thirsty young bull with a mightily bruised ego! He
almost ran all the way back home, back to the safety of the cow shed
where an extra large bucket of feed and a pile of freshly cut fodder awaited him.
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| Back home finally! |
