Almost everywhere around the globe, the donkey is looked down upon. For ages, the animal has been a subject of ridicule and contempt and is made fun of.
If one has to berate a person, he is put on par with an ass. And the person would understand what star-rating you are giving him and why.
I was always curious to know why this poor creature has earned the kind of reputation it has. Even though coming from the horse family, it remains a poor cousin of the stallion.
One day while strolling by the riverside, I came across a small herd of donkeys leisurely grazing in the area. I sat down on a rock face to face with one of them and observed it closely. Aha, what a beautiful (and dutiful) creature it was!
I bet that if you had sat with me, you would also have noticed that the poor creature has a very innocent, albeit heavy, face with innocent looks in the truest sense of the word. There are no traces of mischief like that of a monkey. The gaping nostrils over thick black but spongy muzzle do not grimace at anybody.
The simple animal does not wear the permanent smile of a dolphin. In fact, because of the straight cold face that it has, some one might see in it his arrogant boss. But then I realised it would be wrong. After all, it silently keeps carrying the burden of others without any murmur. It does not get angry, does not bark or growl like a temperamental boss.
On another day, I saw about seven or eight donkeys, each laden with sand extracted from a nearby river. They stood almost in a queue at a construction site as their owner unloaded the large-sized bags one by one. I noticed that one donkey that was waiting at the rear, quietly moved forward jumping the queue.
Unusual
I was amazed. I can't say why it did the unusual un-donkey like thing. Apparently, there must have been some valid reason for the phenomenon. But the act certainly made me revise my opinion about this much-derided creature.
"It is not that stupid as we humans have made of it", I said to myself. "Poor fellow, it can't protest. It must silently bear it all".
My revised opinion got further strengthened when recently I found an example of the wrath of donkeys in Ghaziabad near India's capital. A nephew of mine accidentally hit one of the donkeys in a herd that was grazing, with his scooter. Though only one was hit, all of them united to retaliate. As the angry quadruped rushed towards my nephew, he ran away in panic, leaving the scooter behind.
The herd jumped on the two-wheeler and pounded it with their hard hooves till it was reduced to pulp. The young boy took the mangled scooter home only after the angry asses had moved to a safe distance.
"Why did not they chase the boy - the real culprit - and instead attacked the tin-and-iron structure?" I asked myself. I could not find any answer because I had developed a soft corner or sympathy for them. But, well, you might be tempted to say, "Because after all, they were stupid donkeys, you stupid".
Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
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