Buffalo tales

The other day Milkman Superman (MMSM) stopped by to deliver while I was at home. When this happens I usually engage him in small talk which stretches into lengthy sharing of lovely stories from his life with animals... 

Those of you who haven't known MMSM, read these first:

Milkman Superman
MMSM says hello!

This particular day, I wanted to know from him how Cows show their affection to their care givers (CGs) particularly when the CGs return after a slightly lengthy hiatus from their farms. 'How do they show that they missed you?'

He gave me the usual suspects like recognition by their smell/the sound of their vehicles/the sound of their footsteps etc and the follow up Mooing to garner attention.

Then he went on to regale me with stories about Black Supremacy,  i.e. how Buffaloes are better in showing their affection than cows. 

I share a couple of them here for you :-)

Do I look like it?!

1. There was a time when the MMSM was away on work in a distant city for a couple of days. The Buffalo that he was personally attending to on a hourly basis missed him so badly, she stopped dispensing milk for two full days till his arrival! We talk about Bladder control for a maximum of few hours with probably half a litre of Urine, forget holding 20+ litres for 3 full days!

She did something even more wild on seeing MMSM re-entering the farm gate; she unshackled herself from her moorings, sprang up and started bouncing around MMSM in sheer joy, filling the air with cries of 'Oink', 'Oink', 'Oink'!, just like a puppy! Imagine a 350 Kg force of nature jumping around in joy with her sheer weight and you know what he meant!

I could 'see' the jumping buffalo when MMSM was narrating this :-)

2. MMSM's Mom was attending to another Buffalo fella regularly. This fella had this habit of faithfully following the lady wherever she went and grazing only in the vicinity of her however short the grass around was.

One day her husband decided to sell this fella, against her strong opposition, for operational reasons; he had one too many to rear! 

It was a pity they didn't consult this fella!

He took the buffalo to a cattle market and fixed up a buyer. The buyer swiftly took delivery and walked away with this Buffalo, all the way, to his farm (those were the times when transportation by vehicles were unheard of).

Once the new owner reached his farm, he tied this fella to a pole and went to sleep. The Buffalo did not like this deal at all. So, while the new owner was sound asleep, she walked back, lock, stock and the pole, to her base 53 Km away in a span of two days and occupied her old corner in her old farm as if nothing happened!

Her (shocked) erstwhile owner did not know what to do as the next market was a month away and he had no clue about the buyer (no email ids, no mobile phones - we are talking about a time when 'time' had some meaning!). So he kept scratching his head looking at her and contemplating whether to use up the money he got as sale proceed or not!!

The new owner, not finding the pole, the rope and the Buffalo when he woke up the next day, started searching for them in his village, neighbouring villages and towns in that order. After three days, he somehow found his way to the sellers farm to inform him of his misfortunes only to see her standing in a corner silently. 

She didn't do a 'Oink' dance on seeing him but her owners did - old as well as the new!

Her new owner took her back again and made sure that he tied her in a more secure way this time. I guess he would have probably convinced her to stay! 

I also guess she hadn't heard about Zeno's paradox, the one about the Tortoise and Achilles...otherwise she would have argued her case with the same killer logic and stayed back!

Curious about Zeno? Wait till my next post :-)