Animals benefit as dry Bundelkhand turns green

Sun, Jul 20 12:45 AM

Guess who could be called the first beneficiaries of return of rains in Bundelkhand. It's the animals! Men had increasingly been abandoning their animals in times of drought.

Cows, buffaloes, donkeys, mules and even horses were deserted. It had become common for farmers to anoint their animals' forehead with vermilion (or colour), touch their hoofs as a mark of respect, and say a little prayer to them before abandoning them.

The prayer they uttered went something like this: "Oh my dear animal! Please forgive the sin of abandoning you. But the bigger sin would be to keep you hungry and thirsty.

Go, wander, and find food/water for yourself. Hope to see and take you back when rains return.

" The only animals that farmers valued were oxen because they needed them the most to till fields in case rain ever returned. Animal carcasses and heaps of bones piled up by butchers after skinning dead animals could be seen all across the region.

They stand testimony to the way animals have been dying in times of drought. Now, rains have returned to the land.

"Animals too would return home now," said Rati Ram, a farmer in Lalitpur. However, animals, it appears are in no mood to return.

All the time they graze in the endless meadow that Bundelkhand has become. Sunhemp and several other grasses have grown in abundance.

Buffaloes keep themselves dunked in water all the time. Y.P.S. Nayak, deputy director, Animal Husbandry Department, said: "Look at the animals now, they are fast turning healthy.

Look around and you can see how their coats have turned shiny and clean. Rain is important for animals.

" About the greens that the animals are eating incessantly, Nayak said: "Nothing is better for animals than the fodder that is alive (green). What they are eating these days is highly nutritious.

The animals would not face any scarcity of food and water for at least a year." The drought had led to crisis even in the wild.

Numerous incidents of man-animal conflict for water were reported. Monkeys, bulls, hyenas, bears, blue bulls and donkeys attacked men for water.

Wild animals had started straying out for water. Now, stress is over in the wild as well.

Bundelkhand, due to its vast number of clean water bodies, had been abode for many migratory birds. But last winters none came and shifted to other places in India or moved to Bangladesh.

Even the local birds had been migrating. Now, peacocks, storks, cranes and innumerable species of birds have returned.

Storks are busy laying eggs these days. Gaurraiya, the tiny bird that had become extinct in urban settlements, are now aplenty in the region.

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