I am sorry dear cow,
For I ate you too.
As a little girl, I wanted beef:
Keema, meatballs and stew
Cooked to perfection by my mother,
Who became vegetarian at twenty but cooked for me
Because ‘I could not live without meat’.
I am sorry.
I am sorry because when I would meet you on the road,
I would stop to pet you, nuzzle your muzzle,
Look at your wide-wonder-open eyes,
While you chewed
Cud: noun
partly digested food returned from the first stomach of ruminants to the mouth for further chewing.
My textbook showed me a cow chewing cud with piles of grass around her.
Some CBSE or ICSE textbook with those badly inked sketches.
(But I went home to eat kebabs with Kissan tomato sauce)
Now I know you were chewing garbage cud, while plastic choked your four stomachs, one by one.
"The cow has four stomachs and undergoes a special digestive process to break down the tough and coarse food it eats. When the cow first eats, it chews the food just enough to swallow it. The unchewed food travels to the first two stomachs, the rumen and the reticulum, where it is stored until later."
I am sorry beautiful gentle beast,
For even after I gave up meat,
I drank your milk.
As chocolate milkshake,
As Ceylon tea,
As paneer kofta, as toast with cheese, as butter ( that melted in my mouth).
As chocolate cake (rich), as baked potatoes, as rasmalai,
Because I really did not like the taste of plain milk.
They told me you were ‘gau-mata’
That you liked giving your milk.
That ‘a cow sacrifices her own milk for us and does not give it to her calf’
Because, gentle one, I was told, you loved me more.
Because you are Kamadhenu, the wish fulfilling cow.
“Namo devyai Maha devyai,
Surabyai cha namo nama.
Gavam Bheeja swaroopaya ,
Namasthe Jagad Ambike”
Years later, I stopped milk too.
Because someone told me
About how you are kept pregnant for me,
Kept lactating for me,
Your son killed for me,
Your daughter, fated to live the same life you did,
For me.
And then slaughtered so that I can have:
Leather handbags,
Leather shoes,
Leather sofas,
Leather car seats,
Leather wallets,
Leather belts,
Leather jackets.
So I stopped using leather.
But gentle one,
Your life did not change.
I am sorry.
Advertising made you glamorous.
‘Doodh,doodh, doodh, wonderful doodh’
‘Doodh hai wonderful, piyo glassful’.
‘Amul cheese, yes please’
‘Kuch khaaas hai zindagi mein’
You were a Happy Cow
Who gave slim milk,
Toned milk,
Or ‘gara’ milk for the tandarust.
What type of milk did your calf want?
We even took away the colostrum.
Posu, kharvas,Junnu
Desserts for the ‘pure vegetarian’.
I am sorry, gentle one.
I am sorry for your son,
Who, to prove his manhood
Has to fight a hundred men,
Who poke him, prod him, blind him with rage and alcohol,
So that when he emerges, victorious among other bulls,
He, Nandi, is king among them,
Son of the village,
Treated like a god,
Given to your daughter,
And then to slaughter.
(shhh! How dare i say that? How dare I question tradition?)
But I am sorry.
For you did not ask that manhood be proved of your gentle son.
Nor did he.
Nor did the hundreds of sons who died as soon as they were born,
Because you know #vealisthebest.
And now,
When yellow and orange flags fly high,
And the air fills with screams of your protectors,
I know that I still must say that I am sorry
Men have died, slaughtered like you,
Their blood filling the streets,
Families bereaved,
Sons killed,
And those not killed, their bones broken, spirits crushed.
In the name of protecting you.
I should be happy.
I should praise your 'protectors' Your saviours.
I cannot.
And for that too, I am sorry.
I am sorry that you, gentle one,
Caught in this hail of hate, not of your making,
Not of your choosing, continue to suffer.
Your protectors, drunk on entitlement and your milk,
Do not care.
They do not care that you
Search the streets for a patch of grass,
A tiny bit, just to change the taste of rotting garbage.
They do not care that you moan over your lost children,
Who must also stumble, hungry on streets, looking for you.
They do not care that you, with infected teats and oxytocin cramps,
Want rest. Want love. Want cuddles.
I am sorry, gentle one.
For I, when I see you on the road, dodging cars,
Shaking off flies,
As your bell tinkles,
Can do nothing.
I am sorry, gentle one.
“On Monday giving grass, food, agathi keerai, banana to cow will cleanse us off mathru, pithru dosha,
On Tuesday giving water and food to cow will provide housing and land purchase opportunities
On Wednesday giving food to cow will give advancement in professional life.
On Thursday giving rice porridge to cow will remove purva jenma dosha
On Friday doing cow pooja will shower us with the blessings of Sri Mahalakshmi
On Saturday giving grass and agathi keerai to cow will remove us from the shackles of poverty.
On thuvathisi worshipping cow and giving food will provide punya of annathanam( offering food) to 1000 people”