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DOWN MEMORY LANE
Shearing the lambs
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Soon it will be shearing time, but the sheep may actually enjoy it, says R.V. SMITH
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In a full month from now the lambs born in the old quarter of Delhi would have grown enough wool to require shearing. You will see them lying on the road with the shearer’s knee on their throats looking as silly as only sheep can look. They do not know what is happening to them, but they seem to enjoy it and perhaps know that the fleecing will give them relief from the heat. The shearers are from Rajasthan, which has a sizable population of sheep. But after business is over there they move to neighbouring areas like Delhi, Haryana and Agra in search of work.
The ewes are mostly confined to houses in the thickly populated localities of Delhi. But the rams are trained in open for fighting. They are taught to butt against the palm of their master’s hand and later to fight among themselves. And before their horns grow they would have tested their strength against tree trunks and walls to be ready for the Sunday evening bouts in the grounds opposite the Red Fort.
Big bets are laid and garlanded rams, looking very self-conscious, are taken in procession through the streets to the arena with drums beating the call to battle. A lucky owner might make as much as Rs.50000 on a bet. But the evening one stood watching the shearers at work, the young ones tossed a careless glance at their adversaries of the future and snuggled closer to the ewes; after all they were still as innocent as lambs.
Incidentally, it was not far from the church that the shearers worked. Fr. Luke, the Italian priest, was among the few some 50 years ago who crusaded against cruelty to animals. He would request the owners of the lambs not to get them slaughtered. And since most of them were Muslims who believed in the Old Testament, Fr. Luke would have his way. “Better to go without lambskin caps than destroy these innocent symbols of God’s love”, he would say.
Export of livestock
However, sheep and lambs were still exported in large numbers by livestock dealers, most of them from Haryana. Goods trains carrying them even now pass by Delhi Cantt. station. Let’s take a look at one of them.
Ramu sits in one wagon, all cooped up like the man in the moon and lost to the world at large. A lantern swings above his head and there is an unmistakable smell of hay around him with which he is so familiar. He hardly feels that he is away from his post in the fields for the bleating of the sheep keeps him attuned to the rural scene.
He started life as a shepherd taking the goats and sheep out in adjoining Rajasthan. The goats fed on the hard scanty vegetation or on the aroo leaves which he broke for them with the long crook he carried in his hand. The goats were hardy and tough but the sheep, being sheep, were meek to the point of stupidity, jumping into the same pit if the leader did.
Later he left the goats and the sheep to look after the buffaloes and cows in Haryana. The cows are opinionated he thinks. But the sheep can be moody, running about without provocation, posing a danger both to themselves and to the passer-by.
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