A group of young men are crossing a grassland with a small herd of sheep in Khavarevasti near Nippani on the Karnataka- Maharashtra border. They are coming from Balu Mama temple in Adamapur near Kolhapur. They decide to rest for a while. They let the sheep graze while they set up a stone stove under a tree. Lunch is rice and a sambar made from onion and brinjal, chilli and fresh sheep milk.
The milk is added just when the vegetables are boiled and taken off the stove. “If you cook even for one more minute, the milk gets spoilt,” explains Mallappa, who is in charge.
The flock is considered sacred by Mallappa and his clan as they include two “descendants” of the 15 sheep that were reared by Sant Balu Mama, a saint who lived in the late 19th century to early 20th century. Volunteers maintain the about 60,000 “Balu Mama sheep” that are constantly moving. The temple trust gives away male sheep but keeps the females. The keepers claim that they have been maintaining the gene pool of the Dakhani sheep intact for the next generations. A shepherd’s herd, like that of Mallappa, may have one or two sheep from this line, which the sherpherd regards “auspicious” and “lucky”.
