Bhoom Bhoom Bull - You read it right!

India is a land of wondrous positive energy!

If you are from South India, growing up in the last 25-30 years, you would have come across this colourfully decked bull that is accompanied by a keeper, mostly a male. This guy walks around with the decked up bull, stops at each house and offers only good words to the residents and gets some stuff like rice or money in return. If you don't give him anything and if he is in a really bad mood, then he doesn't mind cursing you :-)

The person who walks with the bull, announces his arrival by making 'Bhoom Bhoom' sound using a traditional musical instrument and talks to the bull in local language to make him do things like shaking his head in yes / no fashion, raising one of his legs and so on and the bulls just does that!

Check this link for a brief introduction about this tradition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY625_kupOE

This video is only in Tamil. For those of you not tuned to Tamil, here is a summary:

" Since time immemorial, people donate bull calves or even bulls to temples, as an offering to Lord. Lot of common sense reasons (ranging from poor family not being able to take care of that extra bull to kinda sperm bank for the cows in the vicinity - we did not have the concept of sperm injections till the start of 'White Revolution' in India which is another sad story worth its own post - I shall do that later) are behind this though this video does not mention them. There are families who are Bhoom Bhoom Bull Walkers, who adorn their own bulls or temple bulls with colourful clothes, bells and whistles and walk them around to attract people and offer lot of positive vibes wherever they go - like 'God will bless you and your descendants with good health, wealth etc..., rains will be plenty, crop will be plenty' etc...

Theirs is an army that seeds positive energy at every door step they visit. In turn they receive whatever modest things the house folk offer (rice, grains, fruits, clothes, left over food...money).

With changing times, they also like to change and want to get out. They push their children into other 'respectable' lines of living as their tribe is dwindling down and most of the houses don't have people during day time when they visit.

"

Just imagine a western country having such an elaborate system of spreading positivity in the air by deploying an army of volunteers visiting door to door and cheering up people of all faiths. Suicide rates would have surely come down drastically! Just imagine an old loner in New York being visited on a gloomy winter morning by a colourful bull and a person who doles out lot of positive energy. I am sure this chap won't consider taking his own life just after Christmas or New Year (that is when many old chaps jump down from bridges and do all sort of things to die, or just die!) - if he is visited by such a soul around this time of the year; check out the stats about the spike in suicide rate in western world around xmas and new year times and you would agree with me! Though Santa Claus is there, he failed, apparently :-)

The sad fact is, this age old tradition that is on the verge of disappearing but we may not be able to do anything to stop it...

I wish somebody develops a digital app wherein a digital bhoom bhoom bull and its walker visit your personal digital screen doling out cheerful stuff at random times... 

'TalkToMe' will pale in significance for sure!