Homosheepien

“Call me Homosheepien. That’s my name,” ordered a young sheep.

One of the elderly sheep in the flock objected, “But we have been living for centuries without any such names.”

“Everyone should have a name to be addressed and identified by others,” said the young sheep.

“Well, we can call you Homosheepien, but just so you know, we, all the sheep just see faces and say ‘Baa.. Baa..’ We never felt any need for such names to identify each other.”

The conversation went on.

*****

It was a month ago that the young sheep was born. All the sheep in the shed shouted ‘Baa.. Baa..’ in chorus to express their joy on the arrival of a new member to their family. When the shepherd came to the shed early morning, he was little shocked to see the new born with ‘not so common’ features of a normal sheep. Its face was not stretched forward but was flattened. It had no tail. It was not born with even minimal wool that the sheep are usually born with. He just felt weird, but completed the ritual of lifting its hindlimbs to check if it was male or female.

All the sheep called it ‘Homo’ in short, though it sounded odd. As the days passed, Homo kept behaving differently than other fellow-sheep. It showed a discomfort whenever other sheep came close to it. Day by day, its body features were slowly transforming. Its ears, mouth, limbs – all were changing. Half the time it started walking only on its hindlimbs.

People from nearby villages started visiting the village where Homosheepien was reared. Although the shepherd initially felt it irritating, one day he got a thought of converting this irritation into an income source. He set-up a semi-shed semi-house kind of enclosed shelter for Homosheepien. He appointed a boy to collect money from the people who would come to see the strange sheep. People started coming in groups from far off places when the news about Homo was telecast on a TV channel.

The shepherd exchanged his role with the boy. The boy was sent for tending, herding, feeding the other sheep and the shepherd took the role of taking care of Homo and managing the crowd.

*****

‘Maas…tuh’!

One early morning, the shepherd heard the strange sound repeatedly from the special cottage built for Homo. He went there to find out what that was. Unlike the other sheep, it was Homo who had made this different sound. It took some time for the shepherd to realize that the Homo was calling him (Master) by making the sound ‘Maas..tuh’.

‘Did you call me master?’ – asked the shepherd looking at Homo without expecting an answer.

‘Yaaa…,’ responded Homosheepien.

Blank! It never happened in the human history: a sheep talking! The shepherd went completely clueless about how to go forward from here.

*****

Things started changing briskly from then. A shy innocent village, hidden in protective valleys became famous through media and the word of mouth of people. Scientists called it just an anomaly. TV news channels got busy in matching some verses in the Nostradamus book that can match this miracle.

Hindus claimed that the birth of this special sheep is the indication of a new beginning because sheep (the animal ram) is the first constellation Mesha. Islam heads reasoned that this is the same holy Bakr that Allah - the Almighty had given when Ibrahim got ready to sacrifice his son Ismail to obey the Almighty’s command. ‘Well, this is one of those holy sheep that was present in Bethlehem when Jesus was born,’ claimed the Christian heads. Animal Care Organizations and Human Rights Agencies were confused as they were unable to decide if it was an animal or a human being.

Common people, as usual brought all possible silly perks like milk, clothes and what not, to offer, deciding that Homosheepian is yet another God who has come in the form of semi-sheep semi-human form to fulfil their wishes.

The shepherd was making handsome money. Although Homosheepien enjoyed the isolated cottage and special treatment at the beginning, gradually the holy sheep started feeling suffocated.

Seeing the response from people, the shepherd wanted to make it still bigger! ‘How long will I just be collecting small money like a clerk at the cinema halls or circus shows?’

After 3-4 sleepless nights, he decided to collect money from the people and build a temple for the sheep. What! A temple for something when it’s still alive? If not temple, just give a different name.

Without any delay, the shepherd just placed a donation box outside the Homo’s cottage seeking money for constructing a small hall for the miraculous sheep. It soon became an official payment channel for all those people who were habituated to BUY god’s blessing to get their desires fulfilled.

Soon money started flooding and a building was raised. Only the shepherd could understand the sounds made by Homo as the sheep’s speech was not as clear as human’s. That helped him (mis)interpret the sheep’s words as per his convenience and convey to the people.

‘When will my daughter get married?”, “Will my son get a free seat in that college?”, “When will I get the promotion?”, “Will she accept my proposal?”, “What should I do? My business is sinking.” – people came up with all the problems and questions of their life.

The poor innocent Homosheepien’s reply was often “waas daaaat?“ (What’s that?), “aa don no” (I don’t know), “haaw dooo aa no?” (How do I know?) and so on.

Then the shepherd would take the devotees to a separate chamber and interpret the divine sheep’s sounds in his own way:

“Great! Homo Maharaj said ‘aa don no’. That means that all you desire would come true.”

‘waas daaat?’ became ‘You need to wait for some time to get your dream fulfilled’.

‘haaw dooo aa no?’ was interpreted to people as ‘Homo needs your offering to perform a ritual to solve your problems. It costs…’

Homosheepien started getting more suffocated and confused about crowd and their irrelevant questions. It truly couldn’t comprehend what was happening and was totally ignorant of what they were asking about.

One morning, when the shepherd opened doors of Homo’s room, the divine sheep was missing along with the security guard appointed to look after Homo.

*****

Despite being shocked and confused, the shepherd hung a board reading ‘Homo Maharaj is in the Himalayas for tapas (meditation) and will be back soon. Devotees may continue to visit its sannidhi (holy place), pray and submit their offerings.’

Disappointed devotees started going back. The crowd declined slowly. Although some people just experienced the presence of Homo Maharaj in its sannidhi, most people stopped coming as the news spread.

*****

After walking for a long time in the night, Homo had reached some mountains very far from where it lived. It felt free and lightened. The silence of nothingness here was so much more pleasing compared to the sound of irrelevant questions of life there. The stress of answering to others was replaced by the freedom of questioning oneself.

There were some cows, goats and sheep roaming freely, grazing in the mountains. They didn’t seem to notice the new creature. They just did their work, which was key to their happiness. But a shepherd noticed this strange sheep and ran away seeing its awkward bodily features.

Homo was hungry. Although he was accustomed to eat all the steamed, baked, boiled, fried food all these days, now he had no option but to be natural. He just saw the other animals eating grass, some leaves, ripen and unripen fruits – all ‘as it is’ by nature, which was key to their health. Homo ate the same.

*****

The days passed. Homosheepien hid itself when shepherd boys or men arrived. It would just eat what other sheep would eat in the mountains. There was no more enclosed cottage for Homo. It had to bear the cold in the mountains. Mother Nature sensed the problem and wool started growing slowly on Homo’s body.

Although it was physically changing itself to become a sheep again, Homo could not get rid of its stupid intellect. It was still thinking. It knew the questions and problems of humans. At the same time, it was not sure if animals had such sufferings too. ‘No comforts, no luxuries, no identity, no importance by others – all these sheep must be truly sad and suffering’ thought Homo. It tried knowing that by asking a sheep on the mountain. The new sheep just said ‘Baa… Baa..’ and moved away.

*****

Forwardly stretched face, fully grown wool, equal-sized front and hindlimbs, a short tail – Homosheepien had become completely a normal sheep by appearance after living in the mountains for quite a long time.

One day a shepherd found it and added it to his flock although he could identify it was not his. He drove it home. Homo was no more uncomfortable being with other sheep. In fact, it was happy that it would get the company of the other sheep at night as well. That night, Homo slept along with its fellow-sheep happily.

To its surprise, the next morning a pregnant sheep in the flock gave birth to a young one with flat face, no tail, no wool, longer hindlimbs exactly like Homo was born.

The new born exactly behaved like how Homosheepien did when it was child.

A month passed and the young sheep said to the flock, ‘Call me Homosheepien; that’s my name.”

Before this shepherd would make the young Homo go through all the phases that it underwent itself, the latter decided to help the young sheep. When all the sheep were taken to the mountainside for grazing, Homosheepien took the young one aside and said:

“Dear young Homo,

First: Don’t feel proud for being like humans. Well, the truth is they are like us – the normal sheep. They follow one another without thinking what’s right and what’s wrong, blindly, exactly like we do.

Second: They are different from us in one way. We are sheep and follow our master. But some humans are sheep by themselves and some other humans make the rest ones sheep. One group controls the other. This selfish motive has kept them away from enjoying life to the fullest.

Third: If you feel your intelligence can make you different and happy, you are not completely right. Look at humans, are they happy because of their intelligence? No, they are just comfortable and may be luxurious. And those humans who are happy, are happy not because of mere intelligence. Key to being happy is not being intelligent. It is either about knowing where and how much to apply intelligence or not knowing that discomforts exists.

Fourth: Don’t think that humans are greater creatures. They just interfere in every aspect of nature without fixing their own problems, without minding their own business and complicating their own lives. In this course, they have harmed more than they have helped. We, the sheep are considered stupid. But our stupidity is less stupid compared to most of the humans. Our stupidity is harmless unlike human intelligence. Let’s remain sheep. Let’s remain stupid.”

It was getting dark. The shepherd started calling all the sheep. The senior and junior Homosheepiens just joined the flock. Both smiled at each other and joined their voices in chorus ‘Baa.. Baa’.