What Watching Sheep in a Cemetery Taught Me About Human Nature

The day is a lazy one. It is a weekend, and for someone who hates the mess that the city becomes on Saturdays, it is a day to stay home. Normally, it is, as they say, a nothing-to-do-and-the-whole-day-to-do-it kind of day.

Breakfast is done, and I am on the balcony of my house on the 10th floor. I can see the suburb stretching out into the distance. It is an absolute eyesore. Hundreds of buildings have risen. They look like crooked teeth—haphazard, unsymmetrical, and crowded together.

Closer to the building, though, is some clear space. One stretch of land to the right is bare. It is fenced off and probably waiting to be sold to the real estate sharks. To the left is a smaller patch of land. It surely won’t be sold, as it is a cemetery There are just a few tombs, and there is room for many more. Some of the tombstones are in black granite and the others in the routine grey stone. They all look quite similar in shape and design.

It is then that I catch sight of some activity in the patch.

There is a flock of sheep that has arrived in the morning, and it is breakfast time. The sheep have a dull white coat and look unwashed. These are the malnourished and underprivileged lot, unlike the cute Valais of the Alps or the well-fed Shetland sheep of the Scottish Isles. These ones, probably are supply for the cheap woolen socks you buy from the corner store.

There are also a few goats, most of them the common brown and white variety. They were probably being raised for milk or meat.

It is yet another day out there as the shepherds, three of whom I can see, are sitting under a patch of trees. Not much cover for them in the cemetery.

I am intrigued now, more so as I have the whole day to myself, and watching the world as it goes by is a great learning experience. I am surely not going to miss a beat here. I drew up a chair, settled into it and watched.

The goats are, as expected, restless. Two young ones are bouncing around with boundless energy. Food can wait; it is playtime for them. Life is just a game for them at this age. The game is around a particularly sparkling tombstone. One manages to climb it, and the other doesn’t. You could see the failure has rattled the latter, and he is now even more restless. He wants to get on top of the tombstone but can’t. The one who is on top of it suddenly realizes he can’t come down, as the drop seems too much.

One of the elder goats is upset about all this. It walks over to the tombstone and pushes the young one down. He falls off and is still happy at being rescued. The other one is pushed away, probably schooled for trying to be too ambitious. It sulks and is probably distraught.

It was life being played out in all senses. A world of wants, desires, unfulfilled wishes and unhappy souls..

The sheep, meanwhile, are in a world of their own. They are moving in close formation, led by one who looks a bit fluffier than the others. They run into a pile of stones, seemingly left by the mason to be used for the next visitor to this land of no return. The first one stops, and the others just run into him. They have nowhere to go. The leader stopped, and that was it for the rest of them. They fretted and jostled while being stationary, hoping for the path to clear. They are puzzled and remain so for a long time.

The weather is iffy. The sun is bright and hurting, but some very dark clouds in the distance are threatening to bring rain.

The shepherds, meanwhile, are oblivious of the predicament of the herd and the flock. They are seated in a bit of shade, three of them, busy making plans for whatever shepherds’ plan. There is a green bedspread, which they use as a mat, and a dusty, brown sling bag that probably has their lunch.

They are the ones in control here. One of them decides to feed water to the animals. He walks across to a tank and gets a bucket of water. He hauls it across to where the sheep are still jostling and plonks it down. One bucket of water for about three dozen sheep—the man surely was not very bright, but then he was the man in charge. The sheep push at it and knock it over. There was very little on offer, and even that gets wasted.

The man is angry now; oblivious of his stupidity, he swings his cane at the flock. A few innocents get it in the chin and moan. The rest just scatter, happy at having escaped the rap. The man picks up the bucket and goes again. A bucket of water again. The sheep could now see through him; they now knew they were dealing with a moron.

He, they thought, had an IQ in single digits. They knew they were better than him. They approached the bucket one after the other, making sure that they all had what they wanted.

The other man is tending to the goats, and he wasn’t doing much better either. He was probably the lesser of the morons. The buckets were a bit bigger than what the sheep got, and that was about it.

As the afternoon wore on, the clouds in the distance decided to move in. The sky darkened, and the rain was all but there. The animals sensed it and started looking for cover. Not much of it was around. They were at the mercy of the elements now.

They looked up at the man in charge and realized the folly of being thrust into an animal life. The men extracted foldable umbrellas and held them up as the heavens opened. They were now safe, and their charges soaked the rain up.

Bleats became louder and the jostling increased. There was very little cover, and all of them were soon drenched. Cold, shivering, and muddied, they now filed out of the crack in the cemetery wall. The men with wet, glistening umbrellas as cover led them away to whatever hellhole they were to spend their night at.

I had spent a good four hours watching. It was as if I had watched a capsule of what happens in all our lives, at work , on the roads, in the nation, and in the neighbourhood. The barren patch of the dead , was playing out what transpires in the world of the living.

The procession out of the cemetery was a disturbing sight. A procession of self-serving, insensitive moronic men leading a bunch of helpless and mild-mannered animals into and out of a cemetery. A world where ambitions are destroyed, hopes are dashed, and despair is a common malaise. A cycle that repeats itself in every part of this remorseless world.

There was an air of inevitability about all of it.

Of all those I watched from the balcony; some would get slaughtered soon while some would be skinned.

And

Those who led the procession would also soon be back in the cemetery only to be given a granite tombstone with a meaningless epitaph.

All I would say is look around ….. go figure it out.

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