The migrant buffalos of haor

When the Sunamganj-bound launch dropped us beside a paddy field in Kamdharpur, the sun was already leaning toward the western horizon. The launch terminal at Gazaria was still a mile away, but the super-nice Master stopped the whole launch just for the convenience of those he called 'guests' of his area.

Thanks to the Master's generosity, it took only around 10 minutes to find the house in the not-so-busy Kamdharpur Bazaar. There were five seasoned men – in the tin-shed, half-pucca house. 

The house had two rather expansive beds. From the look of it, we knew the men used the larger one for sleeping, and the other bed had dozens of cheese on it, some still releasing fluid, and others looked ready for delivery. 

On the veranda, there were large aluminium pots and plastic containers, used for carrying milk.

As we introduced ourselves and explained the purpose of our visit, with a reference from their employer, they immediately turned busy. Soon a chicken's life was sacrificed for us. Along came buffalo milk.

The hospitality was remarkable, but we hardly had any time for a good lunch, for we were more interested in the buffalos, than their milk or the cheese that came from it.

Just like us, these buffalos are 'guests' of the area. Every year, when the monsoon water recedes from the haors of Kishoreganj, Netrokona and Sunamganj, whole new types of economic activities kick-off. 

As the land resurfaces, they are put to a variety of uses. Not all of them are cultivated for crops, some are left as is, or fertiliser is applied on it so the grass grows better.

Every year, buffalo herders from the Mymensingh district come with their buffalos to take advantage of the abundant pastures, and a chain of seasonal businesses start in the area.

The land owners get the lease money from the herders, the local cheese makers make an arrangement with them to get the milk, and some other locals 'provide security' in exchange for money. 

The cheesemakers – our hosts mentioned earlier – rent a house in the nearby bazaar for five to six months and run the whole show from there.

The launch plying from Bhairab to Sachna in Sunamganj, which we boarded from Itna in the morning, was late by one and a half hours due to dense fog, forcing us to run against the clock after we reached Kamdharpur.

After a quick lunch (without the chicken, preparing which would take time), we boarded a small engine boat anchored in Dhanu river just beside the Bazaar. Our guide-cum-driver was Helim Miah, the main man of the cheese operation at the Kamdharpur bazar. Helim is the brother of Nishan, the cheese man from Austagram, who TBS featured last July.

The boat took us to the Dhanu-Baulai river confluence, where we took a left turn in the direction of the west. For the next hour, we travelled through the vastness of the now-dried-up haor, watching its unique life.

Some people were feeding the cows, while others were tending to their fishing nets. Others were taking care of their young rice paddies, and a few were moving their ducks - thousands of them - to nearby beels to feed them tiny snails.

As we reached Milanpur and got off the boat, we could see a makeshift house in the vicinity. The herders lived there, we assumed. As we got closer, the picture became clearer. 

Just in front, there were more than a hundred bamboo poles with ropes attached to them. Later, we came to know there were 140 of them, for 140 buffalos. The animals are tied to the poles in the morning to milk them.

Only three calves were tied to the poles. Two of them were nine days old, a man who welcomed us there said. And the other was born just earlier that day.

But where are the buffalos?

They were taken to a nearby haor, Helim Miah said. But he didn't know for sure where to, because they were taken to different spots as the grass fields ran out of fresh grass.

Helim called the leader of the herding group over the mobile phone, and at the same time, our quadcopter flew high in the sky. With coordination from the ground troops, the drone took a while to locate the herd in a canal a mile away where the buffalos were cooling themselves. 

We headed for the spot. With our shoes underneath our armpits, we traversed rice paddies, pastures and irrigation channels.

By the time we reached, the sun leaned further towards the horizon, and the buffalos came up on the adjacent field to have the last meal of the day. 

Buffalos are curious and intelligent animals, it seems. At the sight of unfamiliar faces, they kept staring at us, trying to understand the purpose of our visit.

There we met the herders Ruhul Amin, Anwar and Jiarul, all from Trishal in Mymensingh. 

Ruhul Amin, the oldest man in the group, has been doing this for more than 30 years. 

"When I first came here, I did not have a beard," a smiling Ruhul Amin said, implying he was very young.

But the tradition goes way back.

"My grandfather, uncles and father all came here with buffalos," he added.

In the past, herders would come to haors of Kishoreganj, such as in Itna and Mithamain. With time, more and more land came under cultivation as submersible road networks made it easy to bring home the yield. As a consequence, herders had to move further north every year. Nowadays, they feed their buffalos in the haors of Sunamganj and Netrokona.

But the business is still connected with the people from places like Austagram.

The herders come to this place in October-November when the water is gone. It takes about seven days to complete the travel during which they cross canals, fields and numerous villages.

Why do they take this perilous journey? we asked.

"Buffalos need a lot of food. We don't have such big pastures where we're from," said Jiarul, a middle-aged man who has been involved in the work for around 20 years now.

"During the last flood in Agrahayan month [November-December], we suffered from an acute shortage of cattle feed. I had to sell off eight of my buffaloes at a very low price," Jiarul added.

Although the haor lands are mostly used for the cultivation of crops during the dry season, relatively higher parts are left out because of the difficulty of irrigating them. Instead of spending higher amounts of money to grow crops on them, they are used as pastures.

The herders said at least five such groups came to the haors this year, with a total of 1,200 buffalos.

The herd we visited was comparatively small, it turned out. The largest had 350 buffalos in the herd.

Four of the five groups have arrangements with Nissan's cheese business, which collects 4-5 maunds of buffalo milk every day. They can make 20-22 kg cheese out of the milk, Helim said.

Collecting the milk in the morning is no easy task, which involves carrying it on the shoulder for miles.

The story of Ruhul Amin and Jiarul is almost the same, both doing the same work for their whole lives. The youngest of the herders, Anwar, however, tried something else to do.

"I sold some of my buffaloes and went abroad in 2007. I returned after 12 years and bought some again," Anwar said. He resumed herding in 2019. 

Asked if he intended to continue this path or had other plans, Anwar said he would be doing this until he figured out something else.

When asked if they enjoyed buffalo herding, Ruhul Amin and Jiarul said, "This is what we've been doing for generations. This is what we've learnt."

The men have 15-20 buffalos each. The rest of the buffalos in the herd are confided to their care by the owners who stayed back in Mymensingh.

Male buffalos can be sold when they are one to two years old, and they bring decent money. Although not wealthy, the herders are comfortable in their village lives back in Mymensingh, they said.

Of course, their stay in the shabby bamboo-made house in the haor is not at all comfortable, but they seem to have accepted that as inevitable.

The tough life under the scorching sun and the cover of cold nights have not toughened their hearts. The ever-hospitable village men asked us to have food at the tent on our way back, which we had to politely decline as the sun was setting.

The calves back at the camp were adorable. As I petted the youngest of them – the eight-hour-old one – the hungry calf apparently mistook me for its mother. With all the strength it had, it struggled to stand up on its shaky feet and looked for milk.

I felt sad for the baby buffalo – it would have to wait a couple more hours for its mother to return. But maybe this is how they grow up strong and survive the seasonal migration. After all, it has only two months to grow up before the haors start to fill up with water, and the journey back home begins!