The setting sun and fading natural light probably hurried P. Karthikeyan; while trying to get Karuppu to pose for photographs, he found himself too close to the bull with no one to hold the nose rope. For once, Karuppu did not grunt a warning. His left foreleg bent, aiming horns at Karthikeyan’s belly. As he thrust himself at his owner, Karuppu’s horns came up in a clockwise arc. Karthikeyan ignored all his what-to-dos about avoiding being gored: he did not hit the dirt back-first and roll away. All he managed was a yelp, a quicker response than Karuppu’s that left the bull unsuccessfully yanking at the taut rope tied to a stump, and a nervous laugh. “Three years of no jallikattu and it seems I have forgotten how to control him,” he says.
It is a startling admission made by a man whose family “has always had bulls”, less than 15 km from the bull taming sport’s most famous venue. Ever since the ban imposed by the Supreme Court on jallikattu in 2014, Karthikeyan — a resident of Pudhupatti, which lies in between Alanganallur and his farm in Chellana Goundanpatti — has hired someone to take over the supervision of his four bulls, all indigenous breeds.
Even as he doubted his abilities ahead of a delayed jallikattu season, Karthikeyan will not hear of questions about the bull’s memory: “He will remember once I apply the pottu (vermillion mark) and sandalwood paste on his forehead on the morning of the jallikattu. He refuses to eat after that.”
As jallikattu returns to Alanganallur shortly, the story of the bull — that commands respect, even devotion, from the fear it evokes — is also the story of humans who spend years loving it.
“From eru thazhvuthal, or embracing the bull, jallikattu has becamemanju virattu, which means chasing an agitated bull.”
Dry runs before D-Day
Karuppu, a pulikulam breed, snorts when anyone except his handler approaches. He lets his body jerk violently with each snort, his tail hangs away from the body and he goes broadside. Raja hangs even further back from his 15-odd friends. “He got me once about a month back,” he says, raising his shirt to show a scar on his left lower abdomen. “I was drunk. He was tied anyway and I thought I could hug him,” he smiles sheepishly.
It is daybreak on January 24, a day after police lathi charge and pelting of stones in Alanganallur. Fearing arrest, these boys from Pudhupatti stayed overnight on Karthikeyan’s fields. Since the police were after them, no one gave surnames. Once morning tea was done, they decided to “warm up” for jallikattu.
The boys fan into a semi-circle, eyeing the seemai karuvelam sapling to which Karuppu was tied. Ravi approaches the bull. Karuppu begins a brisk walk and breaks into a run. The boy, aged 18, retreats and Karuppu finds himself yanking at the rope. He then goes anticlockwise towards the others, sending them scampering. At this point, Karuppu stops, considers the boys and runs away as far as the rope would let him, to the other side. Karthikeyan sports a frown immediately. Karuppu has never been one to let go the opportunity to flip a human. In jallikattu parlance, he is a suttru maadu — instead of galloping to the finishing (“collection”) point like the pokku maadu , he dares his suitors to come at him.
The more the boys try to approach, the more Karuppu tries to flee. At the end of one such dash, the seemai karuvelam sapling comes off, roots and all. Karuppu does not turn around. He stops about a hundred metres away and begins horning the ground, covering himself with dirt. “Bulls that can do this make it difficult for us to escape by rolling on the ground. Some owners train them with a straw dummy. Some bulls get so good, they can target even a lemon kept on the ground,” says a breathless boy. “I think it is because of the nose rope. It is probably chafing at a wound he sustained recently,” says Karthikeyan, now concerned. He asks the boys to back off and secures the animal, constantly conversing with it through grunts. Later, he feeds him a guava from the hand; one way to get reacquainted.
M. Muniyandi, an agricultural labourer, with his Pulikulam.
From embrace to chase
“We are very strict with rules these days. The bulls as well as the tamers have to undergo testing on the day before as well as the morning of the event,” says Dr. Meril Raj, Veterinary Assistant Surgeon at the Government Veterinary Dispensary, Alanganallur. Among other things, both are checked for alcohol consumption, injuries and age; bulls should be between three and seven years old, tamers should at least be 18 years. “I was once rejected at Alanganallur for being only 47 kg. They said I had to be at least 50 kg,” says Sekar, a resident of the same village.
There are some things that do not get rejected, though. “Sometimes, owners spread ground glass on the bull’s body and we wipe it off. We also make sure that sharpened horns are blunted,” says a government official who has been part of jallikattu preparations at Alanganallur for four years. Decorations — even vermillion and sandalwood paste — on the bull are not allowed anymore; tamers are required to wear uniforms supplied by the organising committee.
Bull owners and tamers are unequivocal in declaring that they do not harm the animals. The government official is sympathetic: “You should see the care they show these animals. They are always wiping their face with a towel ahead of releasing them, as if the bulls are being readied for a ramp walk.” According to him, pre-event injuries to the bull take place within the vaadivaasal (arena). “Owners are given only 90 seconds to release the bull. Sometimes, when the bull sees so many people out there, it panics and refuses to leave. The owner gets desperate — his pride is at stake — and he prods it violently to get it to run.”
It may not merely be pride alone anymore. From a piece of cloth tied to the bull, prizes have grown to include consumer durables, gold coins, and now, cash. When they believe their bull is invincible, owners announce cash prizes of up to ₹10,000 on their own for those who tame their animal.
The sport has changed along with the world it inhabits. From eru thazhvuthal , meaning embracing the bull, it became manju virattu , which means chasing an agitated bull. Jallikattu derives its name from the prize: a bundle of coins that would be tied to the bull’s horns.
Return of the indigenous
Legislating jallikattu freezes it in time and risks subsuming the village level variations of the game. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2017 allows for manju virattu, vadamadu and eruthu vidum vizha . “There used to be 200 jallikattu events during the best years of the sport. It came down to less than 25 before the [2014] ban. Right now, we don’t mind the new rules as long as jallikattu returns,” says Siva of Alanganallur. “Why do you think we did not protest when ram-fighting, cock-fighting and rekla races were banned in the State?” he adds, pausing for effect. “This. Breeding. Jallikattu is the only way to save our indigenous breeds.”
With the government aggressively promoting the Jersey breed in these parts, farmers see breeding and jallikattu as the only reasons to have an uncastrated bull in a village. It has not helped farmers that the jallikattu ban coincided with five poor years of agriculture, with the current season being the worst in 20 years. Seemai karuvelams are invading lands left unploughed.
“I am unable to cultivate six of my 11 acres this year due to drought. I have managed only 12 bundles of harvested paddy from 1.5 acres; I should have got 40 from just one acre,” says Karthikeyan. He has cut back on the area in which he has planted sugarcane and has instead pinned his hope on guava trees, which are ripe for harvesting for the first time.
Karuppu stays and grazes in the open field, except for when it rains. Twice each day, he is given rice husk powder in water. A month ahead of jallikattu, Karthikeyan starts feeding him cotton seed in water in the evenings — some owners add chopped coconut. A flour of rice, ragi, green lentils, husk and sorghum, mixed in water, is sometimes given ahead of the cotton seed feed. Karuppu’s swimming — to help with his leap — also increases in frequency as jallikattu approaches; the ongoing drought means there is no water enough for a swim now.
A memorial for a temple bull.
“As far as farmers are concerned, the trouble with indigenous breeds is that they produce much less milk than Jersey cows. If the former gives you six litres a day, the latter manages 15 litres,” says Dr. Raj. Thanks to higher fat content, milk from the indigenous breeds is paid ₹10 more a litre by the procuring agencies and stands at ₹32. Farmers say the dung from indigenous breeds makes for good fertilizer. “One animal can give me enough dung to take care of two acres. The Jersey’s dung is unusable,” says Karthikeyan.
During the years when jallikattu was not held, many farmers sold their bulls and villages donated theirs to goshalas (cow shelters). Ahead of jallikattu, bulls are making a return. “I was in Tiruchi today to buy a bull for a friend. They wanted one lakh rupees for a five-year-old bull that would have otherwise cost ₹30,000. We didn’t buy,” says Karthikeyan. He attributes it to a demand-supply mismatch.
A sacred bond, a spectacle
Some soldiered on during the ban years. Karthikeyan’s uncle M. Muniyandi is an agricultural labourer now, having sold all his land to marry off two of his three daughters. Yet, Muniyandi has a Pulikulam, tied to the side of the road in front of his house. The bull, eight months old when bought, is six years old now. The 65-year-old owner emerges from his house with the trophy the bull won at Palamedu — he walked away with a milk cooker that day. At a jallikattu in Dindigul once, Muniyandi’s bull won a tiffin box and a packet of 10 jallikattu T-shirts.
There is resolve in Muniyandi's answer when he is asked how difficult it is to maintain a jallikattu bull: “He is my son. He is brother to my three daughters. I talk to him like I would talk to a young boy and he responds.”
Jallikattu arenas are no places for bull whisperers, though. “It is not even taming the bull. You hold on to the hump. Not too tight, because the bull then controls you. Not too loose, because you’re then thrown off,” says R. Kannan of Palamedu, who participates in jallikattu regularly. Winners are required to hold on to the bull for less than 20 metres.
Like good guard dogs, bulls like Karuppu live in isolation. So does the bull tamer, a good fortnight ahead of jallikattu. “Groups of boys go to the village temple and tie a yellow cloth, with a piece of turmeric wrapped within, on their right wrists. From then on, it’s like putting on the maala (garland) for [the] Sabarimala [pilgrimage],” says P. Balasubramanian of Managiri village who used to participate in jallikattu.
Like Karthikeyan, who too was a tamer, Balasubramanian stopped putting himself in harm’s way after getting married. In some cases, the whole point of participation is marriage itself. Pointing to a woman in Palamedu, Kannan says, “When her husband was courting her, she said she would marry him only if he won at jallikattu.”
It turns out in the minds of the bull tamers that jallikattu is a team game. “I always warm up and participate with my team members. There is a designated tamer for each bull. The idea is for the others to distract it enough so that one person can hold it,” says Karthi, who lives in Alanganallur.
Teams are also useful for their sheer numbers. “Sometimes, a humiliated owner will try to pick a fight. Then, there are boys who go ahead and break the unwritten rule about not taming a bull from one’s own village, just to spite the owner, with whom he may have a long-standing grievance,” says Balasubramanian.
Denied a bicycle last time. jallikattu was held there because the bull he caught had ran out later than the allotted 90 seconds, Karthi was headed for an unapproved jallikattu, held at an undisclosed location, on January 24. A while ago, most of his friends had run away after hearing false rumours of police raids within Pudhupatti. “We have not got enough practice because of the protests and uncertainty. But you need not worry. The bulls will be there, and so will we. Come watch us.”
deepu.sebastian@thehindu.co.in
