I’d like to introduce my friend Benua, the proud owner and caretaker of seven distinguished water buffaloes here in Juanga. I first came to know him in 2005 when I’d go each day to our school building early evening to sing. The sun would be on its way to the horizon, and as I peaked out the second floor window, I’d see Benua regally guiding his water buffaloes back home. I mean regal in its truest sense: this man has the presence, grace, and carriage of Yule Brenner. I have no trouble picturing him as the archetype of any operatic King, from Sarastro to Don Carlo’s despotic King Philip. He is tall, broad, solid, and unwittingly communicates a sense of inner power and nobility.
The Oriya word for water buffalo is moisi, and king is raja. Thus, I ordained him “Moisi Raja,” a title our fellow villagers greatly enjoy. Nearly every day someone walks by and says, “Benua nam kono?” (What’s Benua’s name?), I respond, “Moisi Raja,” and great gales of laughter follow.
For months we never spoke, though each day he would look up to me in my window at the school, raising his bamboo stick in greeting, sometimes nodding, always giving me some portion of a smile (a Moisi Raja never all-out grins at mere subjects). I loved this ritual. If I saw the sun was setting, I dropped everything to get to school and start my singing so I could see Benua gliding along the terrain amidst his herd, his bright pink gumcha (a towel-sized cotton multi-purpose cloth, seen here and a light saffron, used most often in early evening as a shawl or head wrap) softly blowing against his brown, broad chest, bamboo scepter in hand, the top part resting on his shoulder until needed to encourage forward movement from the gentle beasts.
Only once did I see him break from character. One of the moisi gave birth to a calf last time I was here. Once the calf was up and ambulatory, it joined the herd each day, and thus returned each evening during our ritual time. From our school to their patch of land, there’s a 50-meter, straight-line stretch. One evening I came to the window and got to see the little calf test its engines for the first time, diving into an all out sprint from the school to its hitching post. This was an unexpected and comic burst, and Benua’s face peeled into a full-toothed smile, beaming with pride at the antics of his newest charge. He then glanced up at me, and we exchanged a knowing, joyful look.
My first day back in Juanga this year, I saw Benua heading toward his moisi to gather them and take them to their grazing area for the day. I ran over, shouting “Benua! Benua! Moisi Raja!” and that same, glorious grin appeared, along with a sincere “Namaste” and pat on the back. We are more familiar now, and he’s one of the people here that can figure out just what I’m saying when I speak Oriya, surely a comical and potentially frustrating experience. I can see his moisi from my window at the hospital, and I know the time of day by observing their presence, absence, and activities. What were four moisi my first visit have become seven – four adults and three little ones – a promising step toward bringing his family out of serious poverty into a more livable existence. I admire Benua, not just because of his poise and stately manner, (qualities of which I am sure he is unaware), but because he lives and breathes and feeds his family by taking earnest care of his herd of strangely commanding and beautiful beasts.
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