The Raging Bull

Have you ever had a conversation with a raging bull? No, not Robert de Niro; I am talking about a real raging bull! Well, last week I did, and this is how it came to be. I happened to be sitting inside the Starbucks on 2 Broadway, NYC. I had walked in the coffee shop with the sole intention of being able to use its restroom (If you have ever been to New York City you will know that this is not as uncommon as you think). Not finding one there and running the risk of being caught red-handed I sheepishly ordered for a small cup of cappuccino and sat down in one of those stylistic yet uncomfortable wooden chairs.That is when I saw the raging bull charging towards me from across the street. One could feel the blast of hot air gushing out of his flaring nostrils. I instinctively stood up to avoid the bovine being crash through the glass facade onto my delicate self. But to my surprise inches before the beast was to crash his cranium into the glass, he paused; and then in an urgent yet civilized demeanour stretched out his hoof to open the door and strutted straight towards the counter. He ordered the same drink as I did, took the steaming cup and after a quick glance spotted the empty chair across my table. He walked straight at me and after offering a hasty greeting under his hot breath, sat down with his tail between the rear legs of the chair.

New York is a city of many surprises. So it was not surprising to see that the only one who looked flummoxed by the event was I. The rest were going about their business as usual. Convincing myself of the commonality of the event I sat down on my chair, facing the bull. The hot air blowing from his nostrils was creating surfs in my coffee mug and spilling the overpriced beverage. So, I timidly pulled the mug away. "Summers are the worst" he bellowed, "The weather turns everyone into a tourist; and I hate tourists!" I must confess that despite being a tourist myself I bear an unexplained abhorrence towards the stereotypical NYC tourist, especially the shutter happy ones driven by the compulsion of stapling their smiling selves in photographs of every nook and corner of the city. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when Mr Bull struck a similar chord. What followed was an hour long tete-a-tete between us. Here is what precious little I gathered about the life of the Charging Bull.

Bull had been in Bowling Green, NYC ever since he was born. As long as he could remember he was a grown up bull, never a calf. In the summers the wind would blow from the Atlantic over the Upper Bay and graze the lawns of Battery Park before making his tail swish in the air. He loved the coastal breeze. But he was a New Yorker, and like all New Yorkers, he loved Broadway more. So even with the lure of the coast hanging close he always looked the other way, towards Broadway. He often dreamed that a day would come when he would strut down the famed road amidst a shower of confetti as his admirers from Wall Street would cheer him from the high rises that stood as eternal sentinels. In the winters the cool breeze would transform into a chilly Nor'easter and scream through Broadway freezing his spine as everyone else ran for cover. The snow ploughs would pile the snow off the street on to the pavement leaving only a narrow strip for him to amble. But unlike the fragile stock market he represented, the bull weathered time's whims in a more stoic way.

Years passed until one day a curious trickle of humanity walked down Broadway to visit him. These were not the people he had known or seen in the past. They were an innocuous bunch who meant no harm and seemed inordinately interested in him. The bull was surprised. He could scarcely come to terms with his sudden rise to stardom. Everyone posed with him as the shutters clicked. The bull did his best to look proud, important and photogenic. The sound of the shutters filled the air of Bowling Green and were accompanied by the incessant luminescence of the electronic flashes as the sun sank below the horizon. The carnival continued into the night.

As days passed every morning the bull awoke to the stream of humanity flowing down the street. With every bunch came a new imaginative idea of a better pose for a more ingenious photograph with "The Bull". Fathers started hanging their children by the bull's horn; girlfriends smooched the bull while they posed for their jealous boyfriends; boyfriends leapt on the bull and held it by its horn to drive an important point to their girlfriends, while some inquisitive old man poked his walking stick at the bull's nostril to check if indeed there was a hole.

The unending charade had cast a cloud over the confetti of his dreams. The bull was aging in mind more than in age. From a proud, energetic, larger-than-life creature it had been reduced to a wounded, senile, irritable being. The tail now kept permanently fluttering in the air even if there was no cool breeze as if to warn all of inevitable danger if they neared him. But it only served as yet another vantage point as young tourists did various orangutan-acts by swinging as they held on to the fluttering bronze tail. The camera shutters clicked by. The local police tried to manage the crowd and requested that they form a queue and patiently wait for their glory moment with the bull. Yet impatient as humans are they would start posing with whichever part of the bull's anatomy was available at the first opportunity. Soon enough there were postcards, key rings, fridge magnets and little plastic mementos of the bull that started getting sold on the pavements. Sadly, he had transitioned from a subject to an object down a steep and slippery slope.

And then one day the inevitable happened. A bus load of football players came down Broadway to see him while he was in the midst of a siesta. After the usual sessions of posing the captain of the team came up with an idea. He wished to be photographed while posing for a penalty shootout; And since there was no football in sight he decided to make use of the bull's precious assets. So he posed with arms akimbo as the bull stood taut in anticipation of the event transpiring behind him. And then the over-enthusiastic striker went a little further with his pose, with spiked boots. As the metal spikes grazed against his bronze masculinity the bull eyes shot up and he swished his horns in the air like two brandishing daggers. He kicked the striker with his hind hoofs and swirled to kick up an arc of dust. Then with a head aimed down at the screaming crowd he charged down Broadway. For long he had hoped that one day there would be a red carpet laid along Broadway in his honour and he would walk on it; But he had only got red capes from humans. "All bulls are meant to charge at red capes, aren't they?" he thought. "Today they have indeed been successful in reducing me to just a bull."

And that is how I had happened to cross roads with him on that eventful afternoon. After our chat we exchanged pleasantries and parted ways. As I looked over my shoulder I could see him walk back to where he always stood. The dust had settled and the triangle was empty. Perhaps they would now respect his privacy a little more, I thought. As I got inside my car and turned the ignition on a tourist bus screeched to a halt across the street. I turned the wheel and decided to stay clear of Broadway. I had just met a raging bull and was not yet ready to meet a rampaging one.