Mazhar Farooqui milks out an exclusive interview with a cow ahead of a raging controversy surrounding the bovine. Excerpts:
How does it feel to be in the limelight suddenly?
What a stupid question. Were you raised in a barn? It feels terrible of course. From a humble cow we have become India’s most polarizing animal and you reckon we are enjoying it?
Apologies for udder-estimating your bovine intellect and hurting your sentiments but surely you must be happy that so many vigilante groups have come up to protect your honour?
Happy Cows and Laughing Cows exist only on supermarket cheese shelves. If these gau-rakshas, I mean gau rakshaks cared so much about us, they wouldn’t let us die of starvation. Since May 2016, nearly half a million of us have left on our heavenly abode across the country because of hunger. In BJP-ruled Rajasthan where they have a dedicated ministry in our name, tens and thousands of our relatives have cowlapsed like dead meat in a matter of days. Ironically, most deaths occurred in the Aravalli hills on a plateau called Cow Hill. The picture is no less bleak in another BJP-ruled state Maharashtra where a law set up by the gau-rment to preserve our species has actually ended up doing just the opposite.
You aren’t bullshitting, right?
For gouda sake moo, I mean no (apologises for the slip of tongue). Let me explain this. Remember the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act 1976?
Yes, what about it?
Well, after its amendment last year, the purchase, sale or transport of our species and progenies for slaughter has become a criminal offence. It could land you 10 years in jail. As it turns out the ban has destroyed our secondary market. Nobody wants us when we stop giving milk or deliver a male calf. In 2015, I commanded a price of Rs 80,000 but today no one is willing to fork out even Rs25,000 for me. In order to sustain dairying operations, farmers used to sell old and infirm cattle in exchange for newer, productive ones. But now that this cycle has been disrupted, the trade of animals has come to a halt. In Maharashtra’s Loni animal market for instance, the weekly turnover hovered around Rs 4 crores around this time last year. Today, it’s down by less than half. Unable to sell weak animals, farmers are abandoning their livestock or, worse still, letting them die in their homes. Our carcasses are littered across various states and if that’s not bad enough, thousands of Dalits in model state Gujarat have taken a pledge that they would rather see us rot on the streets instead of removing our dead remains. It makes my milk and blood curdle at the same time.
You seem to be fairly well informed for a cow. Where did you cull all this information from?
From moospapers where else? You see, we consume a lot of paper and plastic from the streets. In fact polythene has become part of our staple diet. Every dead cow has at least 30 kgs of in its stomach. But you dare not try to check it. The vigilantes will impale you with their trishuls before you could get a chance to say ‘Beef Jerkey’. As for plastic bags, we are praying to God to make it digestible for us. I hope our Mann or rather Paet ki Baat is heard soon.
But you are revered as a mother in Indian culture. They call you Gau Mata. There is a journal called Indian Cow a Love 4 Cow Trust and even a cow minister and then there is…
Oh shut it (stamps hoof angrily) For all our godly and motherly statures, we still amble on the streets foraging for food in trash heaps. We really envy our Agnus, Wagyu and Jersey cousins abroad. No one worships or venerates them and yet they are so much better off. I mean look at them. Such bovine beauties they are with long droopy eyelashes, great hair, beautiful dewlaps and a body to kill for. Now look at us. We look so malnourished in front of them with sagging skins and bones sticking out of the skin like stick legs from a khaki knicker. We can cry till the cows come but the fact of the matter is that we just don’t make the cut. (grunts)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence?
Green grass? Some of us don’t get to see grass in our entire lives and our cousins gorge on muesli, what are you talking about, mister?
So you don’t approve of what’s happening around the country in your name.
Not one tit.. People in the country have run out of issues so they want to milk us dry. There is no way I will let them do that, not over my dead body. For all their efforts, India remains the world’s largest exporter of beef. If the gau rakshaks can lynch an Akhlaq or a poor Dalit on mere suspicion of eating or carrying beef, then how come they don’t mooo-ve a muscle when our progenies are killed in thousands and their meat exported in tonnes by slaughterhouses. Out of the six largest meat suppliers in India four are Hindus. In fact, BJP’s most firebrand anti-beef campaigner Sangeet Som not just owned a land for a slaughter house in Aligarh but is also among the directors of an international meat processing unit. He thinks this is a ‘gai’ thing, well it’s not.
Last year Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij held an online poll on whether the cow should be the national animal in place of the tiger. What’s your take on it?
It’s a parad-ox of sorts. Over 88% people voted for us in that poll yet we end up as lunch for tigers which still remains the country’s national animal. These striped Jihadi beasts should be stripped out of their title and declared anti-national.
How has the animal world reacted to the recent controversies surrounding you?
Our holier than cow attitude has turned into a laughing stock. The other day, Agnus and Waguyu nearly choked to death with laughter when they heard about the shitty idea to market our urine as a healthy alternative to Coke and Pepsi. Agnus even gave a name for it: Cow-Cola. Oh it was so embarrassing. This is just not dung.
So you have got no beef with those who consume buffalo meat?
Absolutely not. Cow meat, water buffalo meat and mutton are three different things but they’ve all got mixed up here. It’s all part of a giant cow-nsipiracy. Make no mis-steak. If you don’t take the bull by the horn now, you are doomed.
Well, thank you for the valuable insight and this long interview.
(Bats en eyelid sheepishly). Yes, it was well pasture my bedtime and I couldn’t refuse an earnest attempt to bring the udder side of the story.
Any last message?
Yes for the bhakts, go jump over the moon.