“Get back immediately! It will attack you!”
The shopkeeper’s voice cut through the afternoon heat as I bent towards the bull. Its hind leg trembled, a deep wound dripping red onto the dusty road. Each drop darkened the earth — a silent testimony to pain no one wanted to go near.
I held the spray bottle tighter.
“I have to put medicine. At least it will get some relief.”
“It has turned violent,” he insisted. “Yesterday it charged at a dog… and even a passerby. Don’t go close.”
I looked at him — half anger, half helplessness. People feared it. I saw only suffering.
He softened his tone.
“I am not stopping you from helping… I am stopping you from getting hurt. Compassion should not cost your life. Let’s call the gaushala. They have equipment.”
Reluctantly, I stepped back.
Soon, a team arrived. With ropes, shields and practiced patience, they treated the wound while the bull snorted in frightened protest. I felt relieved — but only for a day.
The next morning, the blood flowed again.
I called my employee and asked him to speak to the authorities. The reply returned like a tired echo:
It needs 12–15 people to shift it. We don’t have manpower yet.
Days passed.
Every visit felt like meeting an injured soldier abandoned on a battlefield — alive, but waiting. I kept requesting, persuading, reminding… and so did the shopkeeper who once warned me away.
One day, they finally came. A group gathered, cautiously guiding the bull into transport. The road watched in silence as it left — not defeated, just carried toward healing.
Fifteen days later, I saw it again.
It stood calmly near the same street corner. The wound had sealed, the leg steady, the eyes no longer burning with fear. It simply chewed grass, as if pain had been a forgotten chapter.
I folded my hands instinctively.
Not victory. Not pride. Just relief.
Because sometimes saving a life is not about heroic moments —
it is about refusing to give up after the first attempt fails.
That day I realized —
kindness does not roar like bravery,
it persists quietly… until suffering disappears.
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” — Anatole France
Pic : Wounded Bull
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