At that place he would take her to the spot he had selected, between two trees growing close together. He’d set the mother cow between the trees and tie it up so it couldn’t move. Then he’d cup both his hands and slowly insert them into the cow’s vaginal tract. Those watching the pain the cow underwent, would almost beg him to stop. When he was almost elbow-deep he’d slowly widen the tract. The cow would go into labour pains again and imagine it was going to deliver all over again. He’d signal his aide to bring the calf closer to the cow. When it was sufficiently near, he’d swiftly remove his hands and smear the dead calf with the blood and uterus fluid on his hands. Without losing time, his aide would untie the cow and she’d get busy licking the calf clean. The next day she’d willingly feed the calf—the same one she had kicked away the previous day—believing it to be her own. The orphaned calf would find a new mother.

The men of the village would laugh at the fooled cow; the women would join in.

Once when another cow had a similar problem, Pulliah brought in the kid of a goat that had given birth to three but was unable to feed them. After his treatment, the astonished village watched as the cow willingly accepted the goat kid as her own.

24

THE ONE ON PULLAIH’S LEFT, now gazing at the sky, is Piyiruzhavu Bangaru Nayakkar—and his prefix has an interesting back story.

Once, his arch enemy’s field was abounding with millet crop and Bangaru Nayakkar was burning with envy. Green-eyed he waited till one night when he removed the ox’s bells, took it silently to the field and ploughed it clean.

The next day, the entire village gathered to gape at the field; just the day before lush and green, today black with the plants buried in the turned soil. Sinner, who was it who held the plough so tight? May his mouth be filled with grit, they cursed, disheartened. We have just one crop a year and that has been ruined.

A week went by with a blistering sun and then there was a sudden shower. What a surprise followed! The ruined crop took root again and grew to the same height. The neighbouring fields were green with their millet but this one stood apart with its dark green plants.

If one had to say this in common man’s words—like being slapped by a pey; swinging in the breeze; dark inside; croaking crickets; not a space for a fly or a mosquito—the field was that lush!

There are no words to describe each plant; one could floor a man with a single plant. The crop had doubled, even the grains were bloated, and this miracle became the talk of the town.

Of course Bangaru Nayakkar was so shattered by this phenomenon that he went around the village screaming, ‘It was I who ploughed that land! It was I who ploughed that land!’