The Cow and Bull Story

                                                      The Cow and Bull Story

The holiday season has begun. The hot weather of Delhi and the plains of India drive everyone crazy. Those who can afford, drive towards the hills to get a breath of fresh cool air. Our small family also decided to make a trip to Lansdowne at the foot of the Himalayas and at a distance of 250 kms from Delhi.  After traversing through the dry, dusty roads of Delhi and the UP towns , it was late in the evening when we came close to our destination. As the car raced through the neatly flowered gardens surrounded by the enigmatic greenery all round, I experienced the intensely soporific effect of the cool air till I was jolted by the distant lowing of an old bull, weak and emaciated. I was reminded of the first few lines of Ralph Hodgson’s poem the Bull

See an old bull

Sick in soul and body both,
Slouching in the undergrowth
Of the forest beautiful,
Banished from the herd he led,
Bulls and cows a thousand head.    

The Bull stood on its tired legs all alone, as though in expectation of someone of its tribe to listen to his lowing, Finally it  got a response from the cheery bawling of a young heifer which stood before him. She looked beautiful, well fed and well looked after. She seemed to have been given a good bath and had turmeric and kumkum on her forehead.

What is the matter with you, dada? Why so forlorn and woebegone?”

The Bull(feebly):

Well, you have everything going your way. It is not the case with us old males.

The Heifer:

Come on, Grandpa, are you whining like the women groups about gender discrimination?

The Bull:   

Yes, precisely. We male bulls are discriminated. The men worship you as “Gomata”; they whip us and make us plough their fields. It is hot and dry, not a trickle of water on the fields and we are made to draw the heavy wooden plough through the fields. Dry-mouthed, thirsty and nothing even to chew, we go on and on from early morning. The midday sun scorches and we slouch to take the heat on our torso. You look cool, enjoying the luxury of chewing the cud. We have no food in the stomach to regurgitate and chew, while we stand waiting for the farmer to finish his lunch.

The Heifer:

I am so sorry to see you cud-less. But don’t deny us this one luxury. The whole female species all over the world are seeking gender justice over the denial of minimum privileges. Even where there is a sanction- what they refer to as constitutional (I don’t understand these words)-the real truth is females are subjected to a lot of whimsical and arbitrary treatment at the hands of their male counterparts. This is the one exception where we are privileged to have our own resting places called ‘goshalas’ and even the great man, whom they address as CM saheb or Yogiji comes and pats us and gives us a few straws to chew.

The Bull:

Don’t say you are an exception. Females are also elected as Panchayati leaders and you females are ruling the roost nowadays.

The Heifer:

Maybe your eyesight is failing and you are not reading the newspapers. Women are given the right to stand and get elected in the panchayats.  This is done to show the world that there will be no suppression of women’s political rights. Women are elected to show that India defies the patriarchal mindset which seeks to smother women from birth till death and which contends that a woman’s identity always derives from a man be it her father or husband. This is  not the truth. Women sit in the panchayats and do exactly as told by their husbands. So don’t think there is gender justice in the case of all women. Please don’t grudge us this one little favour handed to me, my mom and siblings of my gender.

The Bull:

Don’t panic. My voice is so feeble it will not be heard. A lot of us have been bellowing for our rights. But no one cares for us. Some of us who roam around in fallow fields looking for a tiny blade of grass- are often rounded and taken in a truck. But it is just a momentary relief that we are on the move without moving our tired legs. But soon the truck stops and surrounded by a whole lot of people wielding sticks and raining blows on the men in the truck. We jump off the truck and run wild, far from the madding crowd. The men in the truck are accused as cattle traders and lynched. We had no idea what the trucker wanted to do with all of us, but reality hit us when we were back on the fallow fields, hungry and thirsty and moving our cud-less jaws. No one from the crowd that let us off the truck cared for us. They came, they killed the trucker and they fled.

The Heifer: 

Awfully sorry to listen to your story. But tell me, what did you expect from the trucker? Why didn’t you all bulls make a fight? Why were you herded into the truck?

The Bull:

Come on don’t you have eyes to see what we look like?  We are half the bull that we were, bones and leather nothing more. We strayed through the fields  in a stupor, dreaming things of long past, green savannas, jungles brown, dreaming things of how we had spent days in the valley, warm and green, full of joyous wonderment, dreaming how we had wandered with a throng of bulls and cows a thousand strong, how we had wandered on from plain to plain, up the hill and down the dale, how we shook the forest with our sound, bellowing  at one and all. So were we dreaming,  of those days when we were mighty and powerful , and how all  the tramping herd followed us with not a bull to bar our way, not a cow to say nay , not a man to deny us our cud. Now skin and bones, what fight do you think we could make against men who freed us from the fields and carted us into the truck. Our famished stomachs expected diet of grass and grain and so we quietly herded into the truck.

The Heifer:

Tell me, did you misbehave with those hooligans who killed the trucker and got you out of the truck? Why else they didn’t give you food and shed like they have given us.

The Bull:

You are too young and naive to understand. Your mom gives milk and sooner than later, you will also supply milk to all those who care for you. But alas! We are past the age when we cannot even  take a single step forward- not to speak of drawing the plough. What earthly use can we be to all those hooligans? They abandoned us shouting Gomata ki jai-  Victory  to the cows. Whether useful or not, you belong to the Gomata tribe. You will be venerated as the Holy Cow and no one shall harm you. In India you are given a holy status, higher than the status of Tiger, its national animal. But we bulls work and sweat till we grow old and weak and then we are abandoned because we are not as pretty as you are.

The Heifer:

 Don’t be jealous. We have earned this status and  remember, without us you would have never been born in the first place. My mother told me this story of Akbar and Birbal in which Akbar asks 'whose son is best.’ Birbal answers ‘ 'Cow’s. She gives birth to bull which indeed a farmer's friend. We are surviving because of those farmers.’ This seems to be main reason because of which cow is holy.

The Bull:

The Bull:

 But this does not seem to be the case with men and women. Without women, men cannot be born and yet patriarchy is the essence of world civilization. They didn’t even allow Hillary to become the President of USA.  Now it is Macron and not La Pen in France. Man’s rule is strong. They can say ‘talak,talak,talak thrice and divorce their wives. We bulls can do no such thing. In our case, once we are physically of no use, we go under the butcher’s knife. But why not you? You go to Senior Citizens home and live a life of indolence and chewing cud.

The Heifer:

What an irony! You bulls are genetically strong, but have no power. We are considered docile, gentle, patient creatures but we have all the power to dominate in India. There is now a question mark on the triple talak. We are winning everywhere. At least we are making noise and are heard. You bulls just lie low and utter strange sounds that no one understands. We never fought for our rights, we got them as our right. This world works only on the precept

The winner takes it all
The loser's standing small…

the winner takes it all, the loser has to fall

 It's simple and it's plain, why should I complain”

Take my advice-even if I am too small to give you one. Bulls of the world, unite together and make your protest. Forget What Obama said. Your slogan should be “We can’t, We can’t” and refuse to draw the plough till the men give you the MOU that they will put you all also in Sr.Citizens’ home when you are old and helpless.

The Bull:

You are too clever. You know that there are not many goshalas to accommodate your growing tribe(because none of you will ever be butchered). Where will there be goshalas for us? And we don’t like to keep chewing the cud 24x7. That is boring. We are brave and would prefer to donate our flesh and leather for the service of mankind. When we die, they will sing paeans of praise for us for our altruism and say

All hail to thee, bulls of the world,/Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the Earth.

 The loud honking of the car at the assembly of bulls and cows right on the bang of the road woke me up and the mooing and lowing of the bulls sounded a repeat of the argumentative tete a tete between the Bull and the Heifer.