Water Buffalo Tag

Hearts racing, adrenaline pumping, deep breaths with giggles in between, our little feet pounded the grassy slope as we made our escape. It was the 90s. It was Pakistan. And we were playing a game that only unsupervised children can come up with. Do you like skydiving? Or speeding around on a motorcycle? Paintball or horror movies? Do you love the adrenaline rush? Nothing gives you adrenaline like being charged by a 600 lb water buffalo.

My two older (and less-foolish) brothers were in school so my two friends and I were out bothering the water buffalo in the pasture behind their house. The idea was simple: pick up what we could find in the pasture and throw things at the buffalo until they chased us. Away we would run, laughing and telling each other how close the buffalo got to us and which of us was the most toughest, bravest buffalo battling boy in the mountains. In reality, I’m not sure how much the buffaloes even chased us. But whatever little attention the giant animals gave us was enough to send our tiny adrenaline glands into overdrive.

Fast forward a decade. Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, deep breaths sucked in as I engaged in a full on fear-fuelled sprint to escape the horns behind me. It was 00’s. It was India. And it was cross-country season.

One of the most dreaded times of year at school was cross-country season. Everyone had to participate. I remember watching a new student cry as they trudged up the hill, against their will, to the starting line. That poor pre-teen was realizing this was boarding school and that even staff kids had to join the parade. If you had the misfortune of running well in PE class then you were selected to run in the actual race. Our race course took us up the mountain behind the school along a dirt track through a Toda Village (the Toda people are an ethnic group in the Nilgiri mountains of Tamil Nadu, click here to learn more about them). Traditionally, the Toda people have been water buffalo herders, and so in this small village there would often be water buffalo nearby or tethered somewhere in the village. On more than one occasion the animals were loose and were standing very close to the narrow dirt trail we had to race up through.

On this particularly harrowing occasion I had approached the choke point at jog, I was out of breath and my legs were burning from running uphill. Standing just a few feet from the muddy track that I was following were a couple of big bony, gray water buffalo. I slowed my approach as I realized I needed to skirt past them to continue in the race. Timidly, I inched by when suddenly one lurched towards me and spurred me into a dead sprint up the hill. The buffalo followed me for probably just a couple strides but the moments between those strides were an eternity. So there I was, skinny teenager, loose blue polo, coarse baggy shorts and black Adidas sneakers running pell-mell out of the Toda Village believing this cross-country race was my closing act in this life. It's amusing now, but in that moment was true fear. It was heart-pounding fear and was quite rational if I say so myself. Thankfully my fight or flight reflex chose rightly.

Oh for the days when my fears were so small.

Granted, I would not want to be chased by a buffalo again, but now my worries and fears seem so much more serious. Through life we graduate from being afraid of the dark and the boogie monster to being afraid of the opinions of our peers, being embarrassed in school, not making friends or having a date. Then it's on to the fear of losing a job or running out of money, or not finding a spouse, or a spouse falling ill or failing in our marriage. Or something happening to our children. Or not having enough saved for our retirement. Fear is a natural part of life and a natural part of being human. And yet so often it gets a stranglehold on us and chokes out the joy in our everyday lives. Our natural inclination to the charging buffalo of fear is fight or flight (or freeze I suppose). But some of the things we are afraid of, rational or not, cannot be fought and cannot be escaped. What is to keep us from getting trampled? What do you run to for peace? Does it help? For how long? Do you find peace in a relationship or pet? Maybe you find peace from your fear in a habit or a distraction, or exercise, or deep breathing and what not. We all have our “coping skills.”

But the water buffalo doesn’t care. He’ll come rumbling down the muddy track once more to flatten you with a smile on his face. I’ve found out the hard way that the only way to truly deal with our many deep-seated fears is to destroy them at their source. What is it we are clinging to so tightly that we are allowing fear of losing it to control us? I’ve heard it said that if you have your hands clenched too tightly on something then your hands are not open to receive more. We cannot get rid of our fears from sheer force of will. We need to turn to something outside of ourselves to stop that charging buffalo. We are too busy in survival mode. The Toda people revere the water buffalo as sacred and even divine. But, gently, I encourage you to speak to the maker of the water buffalo and ask Him to take control. He has a soft spot for weak and fearful people like me. Ask John. Jesus told him: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” And later: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Water buffalo curry is chewy, water buffalo chai is creamy and water buffalo tag is terrifying. But God knows all this. The buffalo on a thousand hills are His!

Peace. And until next time, happy travels!

Seth

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