Did you ever see a giraffe?
It is like something from between the regions of truth and fiction.
A giraffe IS such an odd animal.
I was sitting on a small little grassy patch. ‘Grassy’ gives a pleasant sense. That might not have been entirely accurate. The patch was not made for lounging for sure. The soil was in uncomfortable protruding chunks, the grass was rather tall and when I sat down the wind would gently blow and the tall bits of grass would bend and graze my face and neck in a rough and not entirely pleasant way.
But, there were four giraffes in front of me and such minor irritations could be easily ignored. It was an utterly peaceful morning and the giraffes has also accepted me as a harmless presence and other than throwing a watchful glance at me occasionally, they went about their life in an unconcerned manner.
I too soaked in the calm of the morning and idly kept watching these strange looking creatures.
They walked around in a gawky manner. They had to be gawky. I mean, they have legs that are around 6 feet long. The legs have to carry a slightly stubby torso before, in an extremely illogical manner, the neck decided to hog on some growth hormones and it just zoomed northwards, taking the overall height of the giraffe to 14 feet or more!!! One has to be gawky to manage such proportions.
And, lastly, as if to compensate with everything that went wrong about the height of its various body parts, right on top, perched on its head are two extremely stunted horns.
Then there are those patterns on it. The giraffes opposite me were the Reticulated giraffes and they looked as if they were assembled by a child from the broken bits of a porcelain tea pot. ( However, don’t get me wrong, the patterns look really beautiful )
We humans were definitely confused about the giraffes when we first saw them. The ancient Romans believed it to be a cross between a camel and a leopard. (The species name carries this belief ).
To get back to the giraffes that were giving me company, out of the four giraffes, two were young, one much younger than the other. They were a little more wary about me than the adults, peeping at me from behind a tree and staring at me for long minutes. I guess, they are bound to be wary. The way they enter into this world itself is sufficient reason for them to be wary about everything this world has to give them.
Female giraffes deliver their babies standing up. So, the entry of these calves into this world would have been with a 2 metre crash landing onto the hard earth. That is some introduction to life.
Its amazing how this mode helps the babies. The hard knock shocks the young kid and the lungs start working. The baby now starts to breathe. And in a little over an hour, it will be running around. Amazing.
As these four giraffes slowly moved around, nibbling at one tree and then the other, the adjective that came to me was – calm. There seemed to be such an air of calm and peace about them. They move from one tree to the other in an especially unhurried manner. The gaze they threw on me every now and then was a measured one. Long and…calm.
Even when you meet them while on a game drive and they lope away, it is with a calm confidence. They don’t run away in the frenzied manner that a wildebeest or a zebra does or in the stormy manner that a white rhino avoids you. They cannot be graceful with those super long legs, but their calm gives them an aura of grace. If you seem them on the horizon, you would know what I mean. They walk with an purposeful, confident air as if they are very sure of where exactly they want to go and the knowledge that they will definitely get their.
Yeah…calm is what I felt in waves that morning I spent with them.
But, these guys can be dangerous. Those long graceful necks can be deadly weapons as you will observe if you ever see two giraffes fighting with each other.
Even an apex predator like the lions are very wary of attacking the giraffes. That is mainly because while all the attention on the giraffes is usually on its height, what gets missed out are the hooves.
They are HUGE. The size of dinner plates. A blow from one of the hooves could kill a lion.
One late evening at the Nairobi National Park, we saw a giraffe and a lion at very close proximity. That seemed curious and we went for a closer look.
There was a reason for them to be standing so close to each other.
The lion had managed to kill the giraffe’s calf and the mother was standing guard over the dead calf. The lion was actually hiding in a dense undergrowth. The stand off continued for a long time. The giraffe would move away as if luring the lion to come out for its meal, the lion will cautiously attempt to do that and the mother will then charge at the lion, emitting loud shrieks of rage, its front legs flailing in front like an enraged boxer sending the lion scurrying back to his hiding place. It was utterly heartbreaking yet, fascinating.
This pattern kept repeating for a long while. However, the sun was setting, other lions would also be attracted to the spot and the mother’s life itself would be in danger. After many unsuccessful charges at the lion, once after moving away when the lion came out, she stayed where she was. Watching the lion impassively. Accepting the reality that its calf was dead.
She moved away after what seemed like a long long time. And then, what really stayed with me was the way she stopped for just a few seconds, looked back at its baby whom the lion was carefully cleaning, and then walked away. Purposefully. Calmly.
Yeahhh…the giraffe is an oddly built creature. But the waves of the rituals of life and death it faces is just the same as all others.
PS : Yes, I am aware that its wholly inaccurate and unscientific to anthropomorphize animals. Its highly probable that a giraffe when it is loping away is anything but calm. However, sometimes it is reassuring as a watcher to imagine what the animals might be feeling and to believe that you understand them. Occasionally, truth and facts can wait :)
Cheers,
Ashok
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Nice read as always.