By Abdul Basith MA, TwoCircles.net,
Chemmad [Malappuram]: Human beings rear other creatures including animals and birds for milk, egg, meat, wool, guard, fun and hobbies. Though love and compassion existed in between, the relation was purely materialistic. His affection towards them varied in accordance with the quality and quantity of products or services, he got in return for the fodder and shelter he provided to those innocent animals.
For Poola Amina of Chemmad, love towards her goats is rather different; she loves them like her children simply for the sake of loving them. She is not ready to sell a single goat for meat, nor would she take a drop of milk from them. She takes nothing in return for her love and care. In an era where even blood relations could only exist based on norms and conditions, Amina’s unconditional love for her goats has its relevance. At present she owns almost 50 goats and despite having a son and a daughter, she considers these goats her children.
She is by now aged 62 and is staying with her son’s family near Chemmad town. Her son works abroad at Sharjah; as he considers these goats a burden, he has been insisting on her to sell them soon. Amina sells tapioca at Chemmad town until Isha prayer and uses the complete income to feed her goats. There are three wooden shelters placed adjacent to her home and the goats by around Isha will get back to these shelters and the courtyard adjacent to these shelters. The goats will then anxiously wait for Amina’s footsteps.
Amina on selling out the tapioca by Isha, will soon get to a canteen nearby and with the whole money earned for that day, she will buy around 50 Porottas [Kerala Roti made of white flour], Bananas, vegetables and milk for her goats. On reaching her home in a Rickshaw with hand full of carry bags, she exclaims at them saying “Oh my dear ones, you were all the way waiting for me”. The goats then start surrounding her and the most astonishing thing in this relation is that she has names like Chuvanna Aadu, Karumbi Aadu , Thalla Aadu,Varay Aadu and similar such names to call at each of these goats. On being called, each among them would start running to her and she feeds them by her own hand.
She then takes care to slice and keep the vegetables and the leftover tapioca in a few bowls near their shelters, so that they could feed on them, before they leave to roam around early in the morning. A few cats from the nearby homes too just like these goats were found eagerly waiting for Amina’s Porottas and she is happy feeding them as well.
By around Isha time, when she is about to have her dinner after wrapping up her day’s business, a dog comes to her and takes a routine share of her dinner by its mouth and carries it all the way to a vacant area near the Chemmad Police station where it shares the food with another dog, which is lame and unable to walk.
The depth of her love towards these animals is well evident from her daughter-in-law’s words, who complains,”Amma [Mother] loves her goats much more than her son and grandchildren”.
We have seen masters naming their race horses or bullocks by names which suit their pride or dynasty. The names for those pets are thus symbols of wealth and power. But for Amina, her goats’ names are merely to express her love towards them and to watch their love filled gestures on being called by names. She just felt that her dear ones just like her son and grand children too should have names and identities to be called upon and to be loved.
In a world were hobbies are meant only for the wealthy, where puppies and kittens are symbols of fashion and pretension; Amina is on an attempt to prove that a poor, Muslim woman like her too can afford similar hobbies but by disagreeing with all popular concepts regarding human-animal relations. For those wealthy people it is their pets’ charm and beauty, which induces such hobbies, but for Amina the driving force, is pure compassion and love for those fellow creatures.
From the very childhood days she had the habit of rearing goats and she continued this hobby even after being married to Yarathumkandi Muhammed Haji. Even after her husband’s death, she almost had 100 goats. Within years she lost half among them as they were hit by vehicles and a few drunkards and anti social elements slaughtered them for meat in the darkness when they were on the way getting back to their shelters at Amina’s home.
Recently she came to know about a guy from her neighbourhood, who slaughtered her goat for meat, she went to his home and furiously argued with them as if she had lost one of his daughter. The guy was ready to pay her an amount as compensation; but as always, for her it was not money that mattered and she uttered a few more angry words at him thus rejecting his offer. Similarly when her goats got hit by vehicles and succumbed to death, she never accepted any compensation from them and instead attacked them with her words furiously thus hoping that her harsh words would ensure security to her goats in the future. Amina was never ready to sell her love!
The meat merchants are often behind her even offering 5000 or 6000 rupees per goat but whenever they approached her on this matter, she was furious at them. She recently lost 34 of those goats as her son without her awareness sold them to meat merchants at meagre rates, when she was away from home selling tapioca in the market. He was never happy with his mother on the issue of keeping these goats at their home, which he feels is undignified. Amina says “I won’t have sold them even if they paid me gold instead; what is there for my son to lose when I am the only one to weep and cry over the loss of my dear ones”.
Amina’s parental love, care and security feel for her goats have even brought up a talk in the neighbourhood that ‘one would be rather lucky to be born as Amina’s goat’. “In a world lacking love and compassion there is nothing surprising in human’s turning envious at Amina’s goats”, says a neighbour named Mustafa.