Nagendra Sharma
Strange imaginings came flocking in as I perched precariously in a crowded corner of an improvised wooden pavilion, under an open sky, that evening. There were just a few minutes to go by and I would be watching the Nepalese version of a “Bull-Fight” for the first time in life.
Things could not have been much different in the Spanish bull-fight arenas, I thought, or even in ancient gladiatorial combats. Only this wasn’t Europe but Kathmandu and the venue is not a well-known Madrid ring but a grassy football field in the corner of the Tundikhel parade ground.
Suddenly, crowning all expectations, a massive object moved in the furthest corner of that improvised amphitheatre. Excited and eager crowds, at the left of me, at right of me and in the surrounding parapets, strained their eyes in the semi-darkness as they shouted in muffled voices: ‘Wola, Wola….”Here it comes”, “Here it comes”.
And indeed there it was. I could clearly make out the outline of a full-grown stud-buffalo silhouetted against leaping torch-flames made of kerosene-soaked rags wrapped at one end of longish sticks, held aloft by seeming volunteers.
Enter a masked “matador” from another corner, followed by some more masked figures, like in a miracle play of old, torn out of the pages of medieval history. They looked jovial, if a little boozed-and defiant. One or two even scurried around as if in a spree, reminding one of court-jesters.
At the possible death-dealer lurked menacingly at a distance of about a hundred feet, the drummers beat their parchment-covered barrels to a deafening roar and cymbals jingled a raucous and eerie rhythm. Above, a limpid September sky twinkled in dim starlight, adding to the grimness of a devilish, if daring, drama that was about to be enacted here on earth, by some puny Nepalese farmers.
Excitement mounted.
Months of preparations generally preceded these man versus he-buffalo bouts, as a leaflet distributed by its organizers described. Somewhere in a dark dungeon or a solitary stable, perhaps the silent process of grooming this stud-buffalo must have gone on for months at a stretch, with a specific objective of making the animal sufficiently allergic both to the blinding lights of the torch-flames and to the hooting, hostile humans around. Of instilling in him, in short, the spirit of the Rakhsasa (demon) it was supposed to be an incarnation of, according to the local legends.
In singular contrast, it appeared to me, stood the animal’s rustic challengers, the masked “matadors”, with their obviously unmastered technique. To those untrained raw hands, the only daring came from a blind faith in destiny that is traditional, and perhaps from a prior dose of home-made brew that is customary.
Nameless they had been prior to that day and so will they remain after, mutely passing into oblivion. Except that, around the same time the following year, they might again be commissioned to re-enact the demoniac drama, that’s all. Who would have the patience to scrutinise whether the same set turned up the next year too? A few might have vanished from the face of the earth in the meanwhile, but there will always be others to take their place, like pawns in a game.
But lo, the earth-scratching marauder, its nostrils fuming and fanned out, its horns poised for a charge, was already stampeding ahead in a seeming frenzy, shooting towards the masked men in mad fury, which was enough to rend the stillness of the night air with a piercing roar of excitement from the spectators’ galleries. The buffalo-fight was on.
One after the other, the masked men jumped out of the charging Demon’s way or somehow dodged him away with an unexpected agility, only to re-appear in another corner of the arena, to tease and egg the buffalo on for a further charge, and to be driven away, once again, by the charging ferocity to all breathless directions.
Hours tickled by and the animal showed signs of increasing fatigue. Increasingly emboldened too, the masked matadors gradually closed in, their unfailing instincts alert. Someone even dared pull a fast one on the gasping animal by quickly twisting its tail and scampering away as it menacingly turned towards him. The crowd hooted and giggled.
The jeering and teasing now yielded place to physical assaults with what appeared in the semi-darkness to be all sorts of sharp and pointed weapons, like spears. Blood oozing from its seemingly innumerable wounds may have escaped the notice of the distant crowds, but the increasingly crimson hue acquired by its sheen, practically all over the anatomy, and its staggering gait, were evidence enough of its miserable plight.
And somewhere in the VIP pavilion, from where the officialdom watched, the signal for the final blow was awaited, as we were told. It must have come at that moment, for we could see the other masked matadors receding to certain distances while the supposedly chosen killer, a tall and stout fellow, approached the animal single-handed, a dazzling and naked scimitar aloft.
A heavy blow followed, or perhaps a series of blows, on the neck of the already staggering animal. And soon, the gory game was all over.
If the night’s spectacle, despite the religious color attached to it, left a bitter taste in one’s mouth, the pursuits of the faithful were more pleasing the next day-the day of the Indra Jatra, featuring a procession of the Living Goddesses.
A legend has it that, a Kathmandu king had once banished a farmer’s family from his realm. The young girl-child of the farmer, however, appeared in a divine form in the king’s dream the same evening and prophesied the visit of a dreadful calamity. This was enough to make him dispatch emissaries throughout the kingdom with instructions that the family’s family be located and brought back to the capital. Promptly too, a temple to house the supposed divinity of a girl was constructed and she is enshrined in it, as a Living Goddess.
Today’s Nepalese practice reflects an unquestioning continuation of that legacy. The Kumari Bahi temple in the heart of Kathmandu has, for untold generations, housed a number of these Living Goddesses, enshrined there following a ceremonial search at pre-determined intervals. And also, once every year, these Divine Damsels are taken round the town in a ceremonial procession comprising of a convoy of colorful, antique chariots; the whole exercise is known as the festival of Indra (the Raingod)-the subject of another essay in these pages.
[Late Nagendra was a journalist, translator and folklorist.]