We walked up to a Hindu temple on the property of the nature preserve. It was a small temple, but like all of the temples in India, it showed signs of care and attention. Although no devotees were present, there were fresh flowers sprinkled around the feet of the resident statue, and a fresh coat of red dust covered the same statue, which had four arms. The gods had certain distinct features, one of them clearly was the presence of extra appendages. We walked around the temple. We had not spent much time in any north Indian temples, so we noticed that it was a bit different than the ones we had seen in Hyderabad. This place had columns despite its small size, and it had an elevated porch of some sort. We all walked up a few stairs onto the raised porch and stood there for a while. It afforded you greater visibility of the surrounding areas in the nature preserve. It was serene, free of the rush and hustle of the India we dealt with every day. It was strangely quiet - then I put my finger on it. No car horns. We could not hear anyone beeping. I considered that it was probably a full 100 days since we had last been outdoors without the near or far sound of cars honking. It was nice. We soaked it in.
I looked down from the elevated porch. There were a few other tourists standing down at the ground level. I tried to see what they were doing, as they were all standing around looking at something. Then I noticed that there was a deer standing in front of them.
"Oh, boys, look!" I said in a hushed voice. "A deer has walked up to those people. Check it out!" My voice was that loud whisper where you had a hard time containing your enthusiasm and it was hard to refrain from a full yell.
We watched the people and the deer for a while longer. All of the boys had pulled close to me and were looking down at it, as well. It was strange the way the people were acting, they were not in awe of the deer, and one woman was turning away to look at the nearby lake. She started to walk away.
"Is it a statue?" asked Aidan.
"I don't think so," I whispered, still excited. But I was starting to become confused.
"No, I saw its tail move a second ago," added Liam.
I wasn't sure what was going on. I started to walk down the steps to ground level, intent on figuring out what the deal was with the deer. I considered for a quick second that it might be a few guys in a suit pretending to be a deer, then I chuckled to myself. Still capable of ridiculous thoughts.
We got down to the group of people. Sure enough, it was a real deer, It was just standing there. The boys and I stood there in front of it. Jonah made the first move, walking up to the deer. It didn't move.
"Don't touch it," I said quickly. I feared disease, but also remembered footage of a deer attacking a hunter on some bad television show named something like "When Animals Go Berserk".
Tara walked up from where she had taken a brief walk. She stood next to us. Jonah was standing directly in front of the deer. He looked back over his shoulder at us. He had a mad look on his face. "I want to pet it," he declared firmly.
"No," I repeated.
Tara stated in a puzzled voice, "I'm not sure I even understand what is going on here. Why is there a deer here?"
"I have no idea," I told her.
A huge blond woman next to us in a German accent said, "The deer lives here in the temple. I think a holy man takes care of it." She was smoking.
"It's domesticated?" I asked.
She did not know the word, I think. But she got the idea and she said, "Our guide says it lives here." She turned away from me and kept looking at the deer. "I don't know why," she said. She took a substantial pull from her cigarette. The deer moved its ears and tail, but it made no attempt to move away.
Our guide walked up to us. "Khadir, what is this deer doing here?"
He smiled a big smile. “It lives here. The sadhu who keeps the temple has raised it.” His voice was low, although I had a suspicion that we were all speaking in hushed tones more out of reverence than any true possibility of scaring the deer away.
The deer was very beautiful. It had the gentle brown eyes that one remembers from childhood, and there was no sense of fear in the deer. It walked one step up to Jonah and started to move its head down. Jonah stood still and gave out a small sound of uncertainty and mild fear, but stood his ground. Liam looked at me with uncertainty. Tara started to say something.
Jonah reached up and touched the deer’s head. He gently patted the deer in the area right above its nose. It lifted its head, then lowered it again. It sat still and Jonah touched it again. All fears and confusion we had had were lost in this moment, when it seemed entirely natural for a young boy and a deer to be connecting in this way. Simply because something was unprecedented and unexpected does not mean that it will be bad or difficult, India had already taught us that time and again. But here was a deer that was comfortable in the presence of humans, this was a bit beyond anything we had thought would have happened during our trip into this nature preserve.
“You mean it lives here?” I asked, a strong tone of surprise in my voice.
“Yes. It lives here,” he replied, with a look on his face that said, “Why do you wonder so?” As if a deer living in a temple raised by an ascetic was an ordinary thing here. Then again, ordinary had very different boundaries in India. Ordinary began far prior to anything you would see in the US, and in India ordinary’s end was a vague destination somewhat off the seeable horizon. Jonah was petting the deer between its eyes and Aidan walked over and started to pet it on the mid-section. Liam walked up and touched it gently on the neck, then backed up and stood next to us.
"Why is this deer here?" he asked.
"No one seems sure," I answered, truthfully. I am not sure anyone really knew, and those people closest to the details, like Khadir, saw nothing exceptional in the reality of a tame deer living in this temple.
The deer turned and started to walk away from us, toward the back of the temple. As it walked, Jonah walked next to it. It started to walk a little faster. He walked faster, too. It started to run and he screeched in delight. He ran after it, but Tara yelled, "Jonah! Get back here!" This froze him in his tracks and he turned to us with a look of anger on his face. The deer stopped and turned, looking back at Jonah and at us as if to ask why Jonah could not play.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," I muttered.
Tara laughed. "Curioser is the word, I think," she stated with a smile. "Go ahead, honey," she told Jonah. He changed from grimace to smile in an instant, then turned to run after the deer.
Jonah yelled. We chuckled. We sat down as he jumped and danced around with the deer for several minutes. Eventually something more wild, or perhaps more tame, came out in the deer and it wandered away from Jonah a bit faster than he could keep up and it went off into some high grass. It sauntered away. Jonah walked back to us, dripping with sweat and smiling. "Can we go?" he asked.
Tara and I looked at each other.
"Um, yeah. Yes, I suppose we can," I responded, still incredulous to the events that had transpired.
As we got up Tara asked Jonah if he enjoyed playing with the deer. He said yes, he had.
No doubt.
