My craziest encounter with an animal happened when I was eight. Then we lived in a rented house which had a big yard all around. The yard used to be like a grassland during monsoon. Often cows used to get in to graze, me and my brother used to go around chasing them out of the compound in order to save mom's garden.
Once I looked out of the window and saw this dark cow grazing inside the compound. So I went out to chase it. Our servant lady who was washing clothes outside warned me that this particular cow was very wild. So I walked in, came out with a 10 foot long dusting pole, with a brush at one end. There was a big fallen drumstick tree in the yard. I came around it and approached the cow like I was a knight with a jousting pole. And the cow charged at me. Before I realized what happened, it went practically went over me. The cow's foot fall happened between my legs, between my arm and body, next to my face, etc. However, apart from the cow's nose which pushed me down, I was untouched by the cow. The servant ran inside screaming for my mother once she saw me being knocked over. Once the cow passed over me, I got up, ran and jumped to the other side of the fallen tree. The cow took a quick U-turn and came back for me, but it couldn't do much when it found me on the other side of the fallen tree. When my mother came out running, she was quite puzzled and relieved to find me yelling at the cow from across the fallen tree.
This happened 30 years back, but I can never forget that rush.
