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things to cool down. Water buffalos are more warm-blooded
than the cows therefore they cannot tolerate as much sun. Cows
and goats can tolerate it. So a water buffalo looks to see ‘is
there a cool place anywhere?’ Don’t people do the same too?
They look for an air-conditioned room. So when the buffalo
sees water in the ditch, she goes in and when she finds mud in
there, she makes herself comfortable in the ditch.
So the buffalo goes and sits in it. On a hot day, the water
gets warm but the mud inside remains cool. The buffalo sits in
it peacefully. As she sits in it, the mud rises and covers her like
a coat. Her whole body feels as if it has been placed in a
refrigerator. The mud covers it completely up to her neck,
leaving only her head exposed. Only her neck is sticking out and
then she looks around. The coolness of the mud makes her feel
as if she is sitting in a fridge. The buffalos sit in this kind of ‘air-
condition’ and humans sit in their rooms with air-conditioners.
Do you understand this? The buffalo feels as if she is sitting
inside an air-conditioned room! She will not leave this ‘fridge’,
no matter what you give her.
Now the owner usually milks his buffalo at three in the
afternoon so he starts to look for her and when he cannot find
her anywhere, he comes to the ditch. When he sees her sitting
in the ditch, he wonders how she is ever going to come out. He
brings her some hay and tries to entice her, standing at the edge
of the ditch, ‘Come get it, come and get it.’ The buffalo raises
her ears, looks at him and turns her head away but she will not
get up. Every day she gets excited when she sees hay but today
she is being obstinate. What is so good about that water? It is
the ‘coolness of the fridge’! Is she likely to come out from the
‘air conditioning’ and go back into the scorching heat of the sun?
This is called garavata. The owner realizes he cannot tempt her
with just hay, so he might try offering something tastier, perhaps
then she will get up. He realizes that for the time being she does
not care and will not come out until she is enticed with something