Buffalo Bill – The original was Indian!
In some ways Bihar reminded me of the Wild West! You do remember those stories don’t you – of cowboys and horses and gun fighters. One wild character was Buffalo Bill. But few know that the name was copied from India! Here Yama (Death) is shown as riding on a buffalo. He was the original Buffalo Bill – the wildest and most dangerous of them all. For the Buffalo Bill of the West might have missed a shot but Yama sure does not miss. But all the same he is a friend if you get to know him.
The Buffalo is a major source of milk in the villages where you can see so many of them in each home (mostly all). The owners really look after their buffaloes – they rid them of irritating parasites, smoke them each day so that the mosquitoes don’t bother them too much – and one of the concerns now is a lack of fodder in places that were inundated by the waters – for the waters have destroyed the standing crops – the source of hay, as also the grass and plants which the animals graze on.
As the children and elders take out their buffalo to graze from time to time they hitch a ride. We even saw some lying back on the buffalo and sleeping. There are not only Buffalo Bills but Buffalo Mary’s too! All over rural Bihar, in the rural areas such sites are common.
As soon as one Bill saw me taking a photograph he applied the brakes and the buffalo stopped. The boy smiled and I took a picture. If you noticed – the Buffalo brake is not a foot pedal but a hand brake and experts apply it backhanded – the boy is still holding it.
— Nijamrita
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looking forward to reading your thoughts
Wow. Thanks for so many pictures Nijamrita! Your post is a good reminder of how blessed we are hear in the U.S. Jai Amma!
These are beautiful pictures of pastoral scenes! I envy the boys. Reading some of the other related articles, I think had we not been colonized and learned to build big towns and cities – with job-giving factories and officies – would this have been our fate too? Contented, with low levels of desires, close to nature but poor, maybe uneducated, not enough water for hygiene, sometimes pushed to violence, at the mercy of others.
These are very nice pics and very natural too. By looking them I went back in to my childhood. When I was a child I used to sit like this only on the buffalo.
This is what Amma says “Jeevitam utsavam aaki martanam”.
Great article. Thanks with prayer for more blessings to you.
the buffalo pics are really cute 🙂 thanx for the pics.. and a nice sweet article..
Pictures are nice – brings out the simplicity as well as the poverty of Indian people. Bihar today is one of the most undeveloped regions in India. However, I don’t agree with the previous comment from ‘motherskitten’ though. We must remember that one of the oldest universities in the world was situated in Bihar (Nalanda). The university and most of the scholars were destroyed by a mugal invader. The library itself was a 9 storied building and was said to have burnt for several months. Anyway, I suggest reading Dharampal’s works (http://www.samanvaya.com/dharampal) to get a good understanding of pre-colonial India. Indian people were neither poor nor unskilled nor illiterate in those times.