While skinning a rabbit, women gather its blood in an old piece of cloth. Rinsing one’s hair with it makes the hair thick and long. They’d collect castor beans and neem seeds, crush them on rocks, add water to the powder and boil it till the oil rose to the top, then slowly dribble it out with feathers into pots. The oil would still have a generous amount of water in it. It had to boil once again, until all the water evaporated. The oil would then be filtered through a clean piece of cloth and stored away in dry pots. Thus they gathered their neem and castor oil.

In this prolonged hunting and gathering era it can’t be said they were all happy. Some yearned for their homeland. They didn’t realize this as the days of labour went by. It was only after this land seemed to be theirs that it possessed them like a demon.

The one who yearned the most was Pottanna. All of a sudden he would burst into tears like a babe.

Perhaps a star was visible only to him during daytime. He’d keep looking high up at it. At night, it seemed as if the star was grounded. He’d stand there with his head bent.

‘Hasn’t Pottanna gone to bed?’ Patti would ask every time she woke up.

‘Go to sleep,’ she’d sigh. After this no one could wake him up.

They decided that the path to the north-east would be the end of the isled plot. They began laying the path along the north end beside the brook. It seemed the best resort. That day’s labour was easy and enjoyable. The weeds that they cut, they threw back into the isled plot hoping to burn them down. First they broadened the path. Initially the work was invigorating and easy.

It was only after dusk, when they were returning to the camp, that they heard the children’s cries and rushed back. There was a surprise waiting. There was a cow stuck in the water hole, struggling to get out. It was clear that the cow was pregnant, waiting to deliver. It was indeed a wild cow that had never been touched by a human hand.

The young men had entered the slush, trying to drag the cow out. They threaded the cow’s nostrils with wild plants, which they twined. The grandmother sat on the bank, calling out, ‘Sons, you can’t tame the cow with the nose rope. This is a wild cow. Make sure you clinch the rope to the end of the nostrils.’

‘That’s right,’ said the men around the banks.

The cow bellowed loudly when its nostrils were pierced. It splashed the slush on the crowd. The young men drew the rope through the holes and dragged the cow to the bank. It was almost as if an army of forty or fifty ants had reamed through a worm and were dragging it off.

‘Gently, gently, don’t hurt the cow in its middle. Don’t forget there is another life within it. We want both of them alive,’ the elders called out, enthusiastically.