01-May-2010, 07:32 PM
Shambhu Dayal the Sacred Bull
Here is another encounter I had with a strange 'supernatural' phenomenon. This happened about 42 years ago. It was around 9. p. m. I was walking near Victoria Hospital in Bangalore with a friend. There, just outside Tipu Sultan's fort, I saw a gathering of about three hundred people in a circle. The central empty area was about 40 feet in diameter. The crowd was about five people thick. Two gaslights lighted up the central area. I managed to get close to the inner circle of people. In the brightness of the gaslights, I saw a turbaned man with a mustache and a large white bull with a huge hump, which had bent on itself over the left side of its body. A very decorative cloth draped its back. The man said, "Here is my sacred bull Shambhu Dayal. He is divine bull!" We all laughed.
Then he said, "Take off all your watches and put them on a piece of cloth on the ground." About thirty people, including myself, removed our watches and placed them on the cloth. The master of the bull then mixed up all the watches and picked one and asked the bull, "Shambhu Dayal, who does this watch belong to?" The bull went around the inner circle and stopped in front of the person to whom the watch belonged. Over the next fifteen minutes, the man gave back to all of the people their respective watches.
Then he said to the crowd, "Give me 25 paise and Shambhu Dayal will pick your friend from this crowd." By now, my friend had already been separated from me in the crowd and was about ten feet away from me. I paid the man 25 paise. About fifteen others also did so. Over the next ten minutes, the bull went round and round and stopped in front of friends of those who had paid 25 paise.
In this manner, the fascinating magic show went on for over one and one half hour, baffling all the onlookers.
Now, this story sounds obviously "bull." There must be a not-so-obvious explanation for the 'supernatural powers' of this 'divine' bull. However, the scientist in me does not dismiss or debunk anything without examining it in detail. It took me fifteen years to debunk the Bhagavad Gita. Scientific temper requires that we explain the seemingly unexplainable. Now, what do you think happened here?