They gathered along the wall to look down at the land that ran by the side; a rough uneven ground, flat for the most part with little grass, browned by the sun. From the edge of it, the goat was pulled by a small rope towards the statue of the Goddess. The priest wearing a white dhoti and red silk top, stood with a steel plate that had the puja articles upon it. He watched the goat along with the men around him, as the smell of dry earth mingled with incense sticks. A cool breeze blew across the ground and after a few minutes the goat began to shake. The men smiled and shouted Jai Mataji.
The priest said prayers over the goat and sprinkled red kankum powder over its bleating head. It was sturdy looking, its black coat shining in the evening light. Fine horns that curved back on themselves, its neck thick and it had strong shoulders. It was taken into the shadow of the wall, as the men and children looked intently from above. The goat was fed some grass and it seemed unsure about its surroundings; it reminded me of a man getting a last cigarette before a firing squad.
They said in the village that two young men had died suddenly that year; one in a car accident, another by a heart attack. He was no more than thirty five and his mother had been overcome with grief. She pin-pointed his death to the negligence of this sacrifice and as she belonged to one of the leading families in the village her influence was very great. Her high emotion put paid to many reasonable arguments. The rains too had failed as well as the crops; many families had suffered hardships. This ill luck had swept across the village since the sacrifice to the Goddess had stopped two years ago. The blame lay with a few ‘modern thinking men’ who had convinced the village to stop this barbaric practice.
Their argument had been that the Goddess wasn’t pleased by the killing of innocent animals but by prayers. The crops had failed before, they would fail in the future- men and women would die regardless.
This sounded hollow in the face of recent calamities and high emotion running through the village. It was argued now that it had been a very big mistake to defy old traditions; the Goddess had become angry and taken away her protection over the village. It didn’t matter that there was internet and mobile connection, or that computers and laptops were becoming common place. The proof was there for all to see. The problem was the modern thinking men, they didn’t understand ancient customs and the power they had.
A man stood next to me smoking a cigarette, his eyebrows knit together.
-What do you think of this? I asked.
-It’s wrong. We’re killing a poor animal for no reason.
-The Goddess is supposed to be pleased.
-Let us hope so. There’s no getting away from superstition in India. They lie very close under the surface, a few problems and they rise up. Not only in villages but in towns and cities as well, it’s very hard to overcome. Superstition defeats intellectual reasoning and if you add high emotion- god help us. People are struggling to make ends meet and they look for the easy way out. It may be that the Goddess is pleased by this but who really knows the truth in these matters. Sometimes I feel it’s the blind leading the blind.
-Will you eat the Prasad?
-Oh yes, why not. Just because I hold slightly different views doesn’t mean you can reject Prasad. That is a sin in itself, for sure.
-Yes, but what about the goat? What does it get out of it?
-I’m not sure but a learned man once said that the goat will get a higher rebirth quicker, now that it will be sacrificed. That is its reward, but these are deep and complicated things, and this year we’ll see what happens, does the village prosper?
We looked towards the goat, further along a man stood sharpening a curved sword on a stone. There was silence now as the goat was taken towards him. One man held the rope as the man with the sword stood near the goat. He raised his sword and in one smooth stroke he struck the neck at an angle. The goat’s fine looking head fell to the ground; blood jet-streamed out of its shaking body, spurting out some three feet and colouring the dry ground. Then the body fell sideways, as the men gathered to congratulate the man for killing the goat in one stroke.
Many men have failed in this and the sword gets stuck half way in the sturdy neck; then a painful hacking job takes place before the goat is finally killed. A slightly comical action from all accounts, though I didn’t think there was too much to laugh about in that. The goat was taken away, to be skinned, gutted and the meat shared out as holy Prasad. Jai Mataji, I said and hoped the goat’s sacrifice really hadn’t been in vain.