Bull’s & Guns

                                                                  Bull’s & Guns

                                                                                                                                                   -Guna

                                   

 

One fine evening, the sun was glazing and nature its self-scouting, alluring wonders. The bulls and young men wrestle with each other for a moment of amazement to prove themselves to the sorority.

Jallikattu is a Tamil tradition, in which male teenagers prove their strength and wealth to community leaders  to get married to a girl.

It was Sunday, the’ COVID-19' pandemic when all the teenage men were spending time with family. But at the same time, my village teenage men are playing jallikattu in my sphere. In Tamil tradition bulls are one of the parts of our family, they call their bull by a nickname.

In my family, we call Guru if the calf is male, and Lakshmi if the calf is female. On Sunday all the village people prepare all the bulls for exercise at the village backside. That was a magnificent event in the evening time, teenage men were preparing themselves for bull taming. Before starting the match, all bull owners, and teenage men, all pray the god and soil for giving such an opportunity to each one in that particular circumstance.

Bull taming location is a playing site for cricket and kabaddi for the entertainment, of small boys and teenage men, the scene is  like heaven. Because nature wonders are giving all its enchantress to this village. If you want to see paradise you must come to  my village, if you see my village, you can glimpse everywhere in a greenish and glorious habited area and good vegetation for all human beings, living and non-living organisms.

Jallikattu vaadi vaasal / Entry gate was built by using a palm tree truck and other small twinges. The old palm tree was cut and used as balusters for the entry gate. The size of the entrance resembles the temple entrance of the great Meenakshi Amman temple. The bulls came for this event from different locations in Madurai and teenage boys also came from different places in Madurai. Players are also excited about the prospect of taming the bull. First, they remove/untie the rope from the bull's nose/ Mookkana kayaru, and tie a long rope from the bull's neck.

The rope was quite immense in size/ diameter, so the player pulled the bull from the entry gate. Teenage boys were  getting immensely close to each of the pillars in the entryway and pushing toward the vaadi vassal, whenever the bull came out from the entry gate the hanging boys were ready to catch and run with the bull at least 1m distance. The boys hug the hump with two hands, like when you meet your close friend after a long time you’ll hug very tightly, the same kind of feeling when you see that scent.

Sometimes bulls get aggressive to approach the young boys, whose playing bull-taming. In my village, more than twenty bulls come for jallikattu. It was quite interesting sun was glazing to discern the jallikattu at the same time moon also opened the windows of cloud cover to perceive the jallikattu. Now the sun and moon were brawling with each other to stay longer to give illumination for a game and glimpse the jallikattu.

 

The diversion  was running all the small boys were holding their camera phones to record the pleasing scent of jallikattu. The alive palm trees are a wonder to support the marvelous game to give shade to the supporters to sit and stand. The fans are vital for jallikattu because they’ll make whistles and noise to energize the teenage boys who are playing the jallikattu. And the wind also blew like a blast it was almost like a fiesta in my village.

The clock also moves sunset is started and the moon is ready to come out from the cloud cover in the sky. All audience and players are focusing on the last bull to come out from the entryway.

One man was shouting very far from the site and coming towards the jallikattu place. He was holding one long stick, which hit the people from that place. All of them started running to escape from the cop. The policeman reached that place no one was there in that place except for one bull. The policeman was running disparately to get at least one person to make a victim of that event, but he didn’t get any person from that place. After that, he started calling his colleagues through wireless. A policeman went inside the village and called villagers to come and help him  remove all the pillars and others inquired the vaadi villagers about who helped them clear everything. He was the quiet scariest person, so he thought about the jallikattu event who was coming, who organized the event everything he told the police. They look at pictures with all the members to think about that incident. It was one of the learning things for teenage men to become aware of illegal activity during the lockdown period.

 

                             -          Guna Sekaran M