The Bull and the Boy

The small canoe boats floating along the Ganges, the famous and sacred steps of the city of the dead’s riverside packed with pilgrims, tourists, book-readers and locals, a young small shoe-less boy peering over at his family, and what I can only describe as a gargantuan bull, all in one frame. This picture, and the voyage I had to take that led to me this moment, this fleeting moment, is one that needs a deep rewind.

This picture was taken in either January or February of 2019. I was working as a freelance content writer and journalist at the time, travelling my way through the massive subcontinent one day at a time. I loved every second of it, but it’s true that I might’ve pushed myself a bit too intensely. For 3 months, I travelled from place to place, village to village, location to location, every day or two, taking trains and buses with the frequency of a hummingbird’s beating wings. I loved every second of it. Maybe not every second. I fell into a swamp and almost drowned in the midnight light of the Kerala backwaters. I was attacked and bitten by what I assume was a gang of street dogs in Bangalore, and had to ‘pink panther’ my way through the noisy streets of wide-ranging barking, grunts, and not the friendliest of ear-missing hounds. I fell to a strong illness in Prayagraj, at the incredible Kumbh Mela Hindu festival, and must’ve looked like a phantom ghost to those who helped me get up from the ground, and enter the train to reach the next destination, Lucknow. I was puked on by a very elderly woman who got car sickness in the Himalayan range, and sat with her, holding a bag while the bus continued winding up the hills and mountains. I was in a car accident. I was snowed in Manali. Oh, and much more. But I did love every second of it, even it’s worst moments.

With a journal, a pen, a computer, and a Nikon J1, I documented whatever I saw, whatever I experienced, and all the wonderful people in between. All the small uneventful things that pass us by, that seem to have no value, were to me, to my eyes, my pen, and my camera lens, made of pure untouched gold.

Especially the wildlife, that rabid nature in India that mixes and intertwines with civilization in an unprecedented way. The greenness and natural tenacity of India, the number of animals; cows, goats, monkeys, birds, dogs, tigers, deer, elephants, and more, was outstanding. Wild monkeys inhabited cities like the human citizens in them. Tigers operated in and around small villages near natural reservations or parks, surviving on what they could find, much like many of the millions spread across that beautiful land.

Before I got to Varanasi, where this moment takes place, I was in Amritsar, visiting the Golden City, the holy place of the Sikhs. It had been 5 months since I had arrived and started working in India, my beard had grown significantly, my hair was as long as I remember it ever being. It was a 17-hour train ride to get to the city, and an additional 4 because of consistent delays that I was all too accustomed to by then. The train, like every other, hosted a 8 to 10-bed carriage, with some leaving, some entering, and chai (tea) passed at around at every stop for a couple of rupees. The attempts at conversation between me and the other passengers was always an incredible experience, a mixture of face and hand gestures, smiles, and the occasional word in English, Hindi, Malayalam, and the plethora of thousands of languages in India. A man and a woman shared a blanket with me, another a cookie. I shared cigarettes with other passengers, and exchanged smiles when something happened in the carriage, which was often.

My camera was always at the ready, consistently itching for another chance to open up its metallic silver eyes, and catch that moment in front of it. The Nikon J1 is a godsend for people who move quickly. Small, compact and mobile, it has truly done me wonders. It has survived countless assassination and murder attempts, and lucky for me, was still functioning and alive by the time I arrived to Varanasi.

I found a place to stay I had been recommended, and ventured out into the city. Tight, narrow streets were filled with the shops and their keepers’ wares, a labyrinth in order to get to the river, the Ganges, with its famous ghats (steps) and the even more famous pits of fire that encapsulate the city itself. With my camera ready, I reached the ghats and looked around; there was a large luxurious hotel behind me, and the steps and the river merged perfectly in the horizon as far as the eye could see.

I walked for a while, parallel to the river, when I by chance saw a massive shape, straddled in a perfectly perched spot, comfortable yet extremely intimidating. The beast, a half wild half domesticated bull lay eating calmly against the backdrop of the City of Ghats behind it. It would stare back at you, this gargantuan beast, and any individual that passed relatively close to it was visibly jittery and scared of any sudden movement. The horns were sharp, elongated and only made the animal even more striking.

I paused for a while, in front of the bull, alongside three red and yellow flags, that had seemed to have been put there just for the bull’s pleasure. Turned on the camera, and took a few shots in different angles, some lower others trying to get more of the Ganges. I have unfortunately deleted many of them, trying to change the shutter speed and ISO they became either too dark or too bright, some even far too blurry.

But then, after maybe standing for about 5 to 10 minutes taking what seemed like shot after shot, an Indian child with his father walked straight into the line of sight of my camera. Barefoot and with one hand in his pocket, he just happened to want to check out the river from that small vantage point the bull had also found. Zero fear. He passed by it, touched its hide, and moved a bit further just down a small step or two to look at the river. It struck me how nonchalant the child had been, the bull not even noticing the boy’s apparition and touch.

I took the picture just as the kid looked back at his dad calling him, catching a great still frame of his childish face, hand still in the same pocket. I looked back at it through the camera digital screen, and knew I had snapped a great picture. Immediately I loved it. The bull seemed to be looking straight at me, and the boy, right in the middle of the frame, body and face turned towards my direction with only the eyes looking away, seemed to go together so well.

That mixture in the world between the human and the animal, the fight between civilization and nature, both at the epicenter of the picture, with that beautiful city of Varanasi, thousands of years old, in the background. I saw bulls and cows everywhere I went during my time in India. I even interacted with them, sometimes feeding them, other times trying to convince them, unsuccessfully, that my dinner was for me and not for them. But none struck me more than this one, and the boy just made it all the better.

I have not touched the picture since. Maybe I should have edited something in the picture, made the background come out more, or tried to emblaze the fires in the background, that are quite faint in the picture itself. But I liked the original too much, to me it seemed like one of the few out of thousands I had that did not need retouching. A needle in a haystack. A diamond in the rough. And so, I left it, and thought, someday, for a competition, I will use this one. This particular one. Of the Bull and the Boy.