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In situations involving humans and animals, Murphy’s law takes a strong hold: if things can go wrong,
they most likely will. Jallikattu may have drawn the attention of animal rights activists for the
innumerable accounts of cruelty to bulls, but the deaths fall mostly on the human side of the ledger.
The animals suffer but generally survive the ordeal, while a few youth lose their lives. A tragedy as in
Viralimalai in Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, where two men were gored to death by bulls, was
waiting to happen. Whatever the precautions taken, and there were many, one cannot prepare for the
behaviour of a rampaging bull. Viralimalai jallikattu may not be as famed as the Alanganallur or
Palamedu events, but this year it had the full weight of the government behind it. The event was
organised by Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar, a bull-owner himself, in an attempt to create a ‘record’
for the largest number of bulls in a single arena. The event got a bigger profile with Chief Minister
Edappadi K. Palaniswami in attendance. Multi-tier metal galleries were erected on either side of the
arena to accommodate the thousands who had turned up to watch the contest. Double barricades
were in place at the vaadivasal, the entry point for the bulls, but the tragedy happened at the exit
point, the open area for collection of the bulls after the event. The contest was over, and the bulltamers were no longer chasing the bulls. But how were the bulls to know? An owner trying to rein in
his bull was gored to death by another behind him, and a spectator who wandered out of the
protective cover at the scene of action bled to death on being pierced in the abdomen.
Could anything have been done differently? In keeping with the guidelines set by the Supreme Court
to regulate the sport, the Health Department had also deployed teams of doctors from Pudukottai.
Medical experts from Tiruchi and Thanjavur Medical Colleges were deployed to attend to emergency
cases.