The Alpha-Goat of Kotri

The Alpha-Goat of Kotri

In the village of Kotri there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of goats. Herds of goats walk the streets of the village like gangs, asserting an almost arrogant dominance of the place. Some have found themselves accommodation and co-exist happily with their human families. Some live in pens, all goats together, and some, like the Alpha-Goat of Kotri, have chosen to live the unconventional life on the hard-knock streets that they roam.

Volunteer Hannah with Goaty - a goat belonging to a host family.

Goats. They cause so much traffic in the small village of Kotri. Pedestrians have to stop in their paths. Vehicles of all kinds come to a stand-still. This plethora of species and objects, with the added haphazard journeys of the dogs, cows and buffalos, create a chaotic new language that is indecipherable to the human ear. The only way to avoid this rush is to side step through the litter and faeces at the side of the road. Goats. They really do have run of the place.

Before having my first real experience of co-existing in the same space as goats, I thought they were all the same. How terribly wrong I was. Apart from their difference in rearing, their primitive behaviour and aesthetics, I thought they were all the same. How terribly wrong I was.  This was my mind-set until I met the one, the only, the Alpha-Goat of Kotri.

I met the Alpha-Goat of Kotri one day whilst waiting for the bus to Kishangarh with my fellow volunteers, Harry and Noel. Under an elderly tree which was crippled and entwined fiercely by old age, there he was, looking mundane and no different to any other goat, laying in the shade that the tree provided.

The Alpha-Goat of Kotri at night, near the shop.

The attention that I spent on him was fleeting, a mere acknowledgement of his existence. As I chatted away to my friends, the Alpha-Goat decided to assert his clear authority and dominance over the village – a memo that the ICS PRAVAH volunteers evidently hadn’t received. Slowly, he sauntered into our vision, into the middle of the road. My initial reaction was to think ‘I wonder what that goat is doing by himself’ as goats never seem to travel alone in the village of Kotri, and it was a strange sight to see. This was the first sign that I had overlooked which gave a hint into how much power he really possessed. Unhurriedly, he walked up to a herd of five cows and bleated at them with such force and control that these huge, heavy hunks of animals scarpered. They trotted gradually from the side of the road that they had been occupying. I was amazed. I had watched this seemingly more than ordinary goat overpower five animals that could have easily flicked him away with a swift movement from their tails.

What the newly coined ‘Alpha-Goat of Kotri’ did next was so shocking that I could not help but laugh out in surprise. The Alpha-Goat leisurely turned his head to look at his spectators, made eye contact with me and my counterparts, and then let release a steady stream of urine that seemed to take forever to stop. Once he was done, he strutted back to his resting place, victorious in his aims, and went back to sleep.

From that day on, and every day since, I have acknowledged the lone goat with the true respect that he deserves. He resides next to the local shop most days, watching the comings and goings of the people in his village. He is the undeniable leader of the community, trumping even the political power of the Sarpanch. The hierarchy of the village changed that day and with my vision now unclouded, I saw that in the boundaries of Kotri, goats reign supreme.

I asked his supremacy for an interview but he merely bleated and trotted away to take care of some affairs that he had pending.

Volunteer Noel with the Alpha-Goat of Kotri