Baby Mule

 

I came across an interesting scene recently.

How often do we see mules these days? I came across a group of mules standing on the roadside while I was riding my motorcycle. But there was one mule on the other side of the road, alone and it had just started to cross the road. Its both feet were tied in pairs and it looked weak while it struggled to walk, perhaps it was recovering from sickness or it was a female mule who recently delivered a baby. So, on the left side of the road, there is a group of mules and on the other side of the road, there is this female mule trying to cross the road.

By the time I crossed that part, I could see that from the other side of the road, a baby mule (it was much smaller in size and hence clearly a baby) started crossing the road towards the other mule. So, we have two mules moving towards each other, in the middle of ongoing traffic on a busy road.

After I passed them, I looked in the rear mirror to find out what happens next. What I see next was so touching. The baby mule went and reached the mother-mule and then turned back and started walking “alongside” the mother-mule. It was like he was trying to help her cross the road. And it was working, since the vehicles would pay more attention to two mules crossing the road instead of one. Despite being an animal, it still got this instinct to help the mother-mule out and it risked its own life by crossing the busy road and walked besides her.

While I moved ahead and the two mules vanished from my rear mirror, the heart touching scene had got captured in my mind for time to come.

- Rahul Tiwary  

Ganesh Puja 2022 - Pune

(C) Rahul Tiwary