Oh, them Cows!
Cows are found in abundance in India. By cows I mean, their children, their aunts, their fathers, their unchaste fathers, their cousins and so sixth. I’m not sure what their population was say, ten years’ earlier, but the place where I work and live at momentarily (PS: It’s Gujarat.) is where re-birth of Cow-dom went down. Cow-dom was birthed, in finest of my knowledge (some Indianised English for you), in a world imagined by handful of people who saw themselves more worldly over “common” folk, which was then labelled and imposed as holy scriptures and spiritual doctrines.
Enough with the ruminations now!
Cows are at every corner, one in almost every lane, at least one in a by-lane, two-three having a chat or smelling one another on a vehicular road, several resting in the middle of a highway/motorway savouring every moment of that historical privilege of how no human can touch them, and many on a familiar or newer food trail. The way I see at it, cows are the most free animals in the country. - A domestic creature which moves and wanders as a wild one.
People of India revere many things. But as most Indians know well, our reverence – be it for anything, comes with disclaimers and T&Cs attached. How can the norm not be applied to cows then, eh? Regardless of worship - according to a faulty yet widely and wildly accepted evolutionary theory - we humans still are top of pyramid goods. No?
Disclaimers are heard aloud through excessive and continuous honking at the animal/s to allow vehicle to pass. Exceptions as to quietly curse the creature when one walks into or slips over fresh pile of shit, or shouting hudd-hudd (the Indian equivalent of shoo, though brutally insulting) by pedestrians who are in a hurry to reach home, but unable to due to cow chaos in the evening are seen normal and necessary. The very same endearing veneration is explicitly visible when one provides sustenance of leftover food and over-ripped veggies (nothing must go waste is our philosophy) to the creature, and likewise witnessed through a light beating (literally light. A hard beating can land you in trouble, and it won’t just be because its animal cruelty) when it arrives at doorstep for some fresh and quality produce. How the force of worship finds itself grossed out when two or more cows are spotted smelling one another bhare bazaar mein (English: in open). But worry not, there’s T&Cs for such occasions well.
To end, Indian citizenry’s relationship with Cows is situational. Let us then keep them passed on beliefs and notions adaptable and amendable as well.
