The occasional garbage truck trundles down, rattling like a minor earthquake. Men on motorbikes drive on the quiet road, balancing precarious loads in between their legs—large bundles of vegetables, fruits, banana leaves, and greens that they will later sell to customers like me who have neither the time nor the inclination to go to City Market to buy weekly vegetables in bulk. Food carts, carrying life’s necessities—buttermilk, tea, tobacco—get pushed down the road like convenience stores on wheels.
Sarala stands behind her large stainless-steel milk drum, smiling and nodding like a benevolent Buddha. Customers crowd around. Her drum is filled with frothy milk. Sarala holds her orange-colored, plastic sieve over her customers’ containers and pours out the requested quantity of milk: one, two, or three liters. Picky customers wait for the milk that is being drawn at that moment. They prefer single-origin milk, straight from one cow’s udder into their container. They like the smell and feel of just-expressed milk, still warm from the cow’s body. The milk in Sarala’s big steel drum is a blend—originating from three different cows. Most people don’t mind the blend. They are in a hurry. They walk up, hand Sarala their milk coupons, stick out their stainless-steel buckets, collect the milk, and walk away.
I usually prefer single-origin milk. This morning I, too, am in a hurry. The plumber who has reneged four times has promised that he will show up to fix the leak in our bathroom.
“Mother-promise, Madam,” he pronounced solemnly, when I phoned him last night. “God-promise.”
“Don’t say that,” I admonished. “If you don’t come tomorrow, your mother will die.”
I didn’t know then that his mother was already dead.
Selva squats nearby, milking Sarala’s favorite cow, a black-nosed beauty that stamps often to shoo away flies. Sarala has names for each of her ten cows. This one is Chella Lakshmi, or “Sweetheart” Lakshmi—the cow that Malu and I attempted to milk—but most of us merely point at the bovines.
The street and sidewalk are not that different from those on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. Except that in place of bicycles chained to trees and posts, there are live cows waiting in line. Instead of grocery or milk trucks, there are cows. Instead of delivery boys, there is young Selva, squatting on the ground, milking a cow.
Hawk-eyed customers from the army campus watch Selva. Their stainless-steel milk cans, lined up beside each other, look like Indian ubersculptor Subodh Gupta’s installations. Parakeets shriek overhead as they fly in streaks of green.
A woman wearing a purple hijab walks towards us. Her name is Mumtaz and she is one of the regulars. She tells Sarala that her son Ahmed doesn’t like Chella Lakshmi’s milk. She wants milk from her “usual cow,” a dark-skinned beauty that stands a few yards away placidly chewing cucumber peels.
I stare at six-year-old Ahmed doubtfully. Clad in his blue-and-white school uniform, with neatly parted wet hair and soulful eyes, he seems too young to have a palate, let alone one that can differentiate between the milk of two cows. The lad stares back at me in the unblinking fashion of children.
“Can your son tell the difference?” I ask.
“Of course,” Mumtaz says, with a toss of her purple hijab. “Can’t you?” She points at the cow eating cucumber peels. “The dark cow’s milk is more . . . how to say it . . . more stable, more gentle. It has less . . . intensity and settles well in the stomach. It’s all the cucumber that she eats. It makes her milk more . . . ”
“Alkaline?”
“If you want to call it that,” Mumtaz says, nodding.
She takes me aside and quietly tells me to stay away from the milk of the far cow. “It’s these Americans, you see. They have been importing mangoes and giving the mango peels to that cow. Who eats mangoes in November? The poor cow gorges on mango peels and its milk has become gassy, acidic. My son gets an upset stomach after drinking that one’s milk.”
It occurs to me that I am hearing a new solution to lactose intolerance: change your cow.
Sarala and I are both South Indian. She can speak my language, Tamil, but I cannot speak her mother tongue Telugu. Most of her customers from the army complex are North Indians who speak Hindi and cannot speak either of our languages. This is why Indians are so good at picking up English: we have too many regional languages.
“That lady is too shrewd,” Sarala tells me in Tamil after Mumtaz leaves with milk from her preferred cow. “She can line up all my cows and tell tiny-tiny differences in the milk with arrow-like precision.”
Indians will rarely say “tiny” in the singular. It usually involves what my father, the English professor, calls “reduplication,” or repeating the same or a similar, rhyming word. Indian languages are full of reduplication, as well as onomatopoeia. Perhaps we do this to make ourselves heard in a noisy land.
I do the same thing when my plumber arrives, two hours late.
“Besh-besh,” I say. “Thank you for showing up.”
Besh-besh is like saying, “Well, well.” It means different things based on tone of voice. It can be a compliment, express sarcasm, or convey amazement.
“I was in another house, Madam. They were noy-noy [bugging me].”
“Okay, then. Don’t stand around masa-masa [dithering like this],” I reply. “Come fast-fast and do some work.”
“I would have sent my son,” the plumber says, unpacking his tools. “But all he does is talk loda-loda [loudly]. He is such a waste. And fat, too.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You will conduct his wedding jaam-jaam, [with pomp and circumstance]. Just watch. All your problems will be solved.”
“Oh, don’t talk about my wastrel son’s marriage. My heart is racing pada-pada [pitter-patter] already,” says the plumber, his head underneath my washbasin.
“Why do you worry? Let me make you some chuda-chuda [hot-hot] coffee and everything will be alright.”
Besh-besh; chuda-chuda; gada-gada; mada-mada; pada-pada; masa-masa; loda-loda; ada-ada; chinna-chinna. These are the phrases I grew up with, as comforting to me as a mother’s heartbeat. Bengali, the North Indian language of Nobel Prize – winning poet Rabindranath Tagore and of cult film director Satyajit Ray, is perhaps the queen of reduplication, with a whole host of phrases that are musical and emphatic: phit-phat, ghup-ghap, tok-tok, and other expressions made up of words that are said twice, and sometimes thrice for emphasis.
South Indian languages are not far behind. Some expressions, like the Tamilian “ada-ada” and “besh-besh,” are just exclamations that change the meaning of the sentence depending on tone of voice. But reduplication isn’t really about tone. It is used to give an expression some girth. Tiny, for instance, is a tiny word, so Indians will rarely say it in the singular. In the film Monsoon Wedding, there is a scene comparing a woman’s breasts to mangoes and one speaker uses the term, choti-choti aam (“tiny-tiny mangoes”).
Indians use reduplication to convey two contrary impulses: intensity and casualness. And Sarala’s use of reduplication gives her speech an onomatopoeic cadence, both soothing and descriptive to the people who crowd around her every morning.
“Is it true, what Mumtaz said?” I ask one morning. “Do different cows have different types of milk?”
“Of course,” says Sarala with her typical, breezy confidence. “Each breed of cow gives a different type of milk depending on its body type, temperament, what it has eaten, whether it is in heat. So many factors.”
“What if I want the best cow’s milk?” I ask.
“There is no best cow’s milk,” she says. “It is like a marriage. Will one man’s wife be suitable as a spouse for another man?”
“Yes,” I say. “Isn’t that why marriages break up?”
Her face falls. I feel a pinch of regret for spoiling what she thought was a perfect example.
“But go on,” I prod.
Sarala stares at me, as if trying to decide the best way to describe a complex concept to a moron.
According to Sarala, anything from nature,
be it picking fruits, vegetables, or flowers, or foraging for mushrooms and herbs, isn’t simply a matter of what we humans call “quality.” It isn’t only about the size of the fruit or how unblemished the vegetable looks. Those are considerations but there is also energy, resonance, destiny.
“Say you go to buy a puppy,” she says. “There will be lots of puppies in the yard. Why do you choose the one you do? You may say that it is because the puppy is cute or beautiful. But it is a lot more than that. Maybe the puppy and you were friends in your past life. Maybe the puppy has been created to come into your home and teach you something—patience, courage, something. It is the same with milking.”
“Even today, it happens like this in villages,” says Sarala. “My aunt knows exactly which cow to choose for the day’s milk for her family. Some of it is intuition. You choose a cow based on its mood, what it looks like, what the day feels like, what you feel like, whether someone in your family has a fever or cold, whether the planets are properly aligned. It is like Mumtaz said. During the exams, you want the milk of an active cow. When you are sick, you want buffalo’s milk because it will put you to sleep. If there are four cows in your shed, you choose the one to milk for your family and give the remaining milk away. Today, it is all standardized. You don’t know where your milk is coming from.”
What Sarala says is music to my ears. Synchronicity. Serendipity. Destiny. Nebulous intangibles that speak to my soul and spirit. I gaze at the four cows that stand beside me under the trees. The idea of choosing a cow to suit a specific family’s needs—for that day, moment, and space—is alluring.
“How do I learn this intuition for choosing milk?”
Sarala gazes at me. Something in the sincerity of my question and demeanor suggests to her that I am serious. “Go see my brother,” she says simply.
Sarala’s “brother” isn’t really her brother, not in the Western sense of the term, anyhow. He is her distant relative, male, and older than she is, so she calls him “Anna” (“elder brother”). The Indian mind seeks relationships over transactions; it values connection more than opportunities. Friends become family. Why call someone a friend when she can be your older brother or sister?
Sarala’s brother is a farmer in Dinnur village just outside of Bangalore. One morning, I drive there to learn about cows and intuition and choosing milk. The meeting point is vague.
“My brother will be standing opposite Ideal Store, with his fruit-cart. This time of year, he will be selling watermelons and pineapples,” says Sarala.
Bordered by lily ponds and mango orchards, the picturesque village is full of compact homes. Each home has a courtyard with cows. Sarala’s brother is exactly where she said he would be. On the single country lane is a solitary shop called Ideal Store. Opposite is a turbaned fruit seller. He squints at me in the sunlight. I introduce myself in fluent Tamil as Sarala’s friend. Nambi breaks out into a broad smile and offers me some tender coconut water. I feel bad that I am taking freebies from a fruit seller. I offer to buy one of his watermelons.
“Why must you buy? You are Sarala’s friend. Here.” In quick order, he splits open a watermelon and cuts it into glistening pink cubes. Both of us chew watermelon cubes, spit out the seeds, and talk desultorily. Nambi sees a cut on my arm and suggests that I use a poultice made of raw onions and garlic on the wound.
“With the price of onions and garlic being what they are, I’d rather go to an English doctor [allopathic doctor],” I reply.
Commiserating over the price of vegetables is, along with bargaining, a great Indian pastime. It is a way to connect instantly. Nambi nods heartily. He and I complain companionably about how we have stopped making onion chutneys and pilafs because the price of onions is so high.
“Thankfully, milk isn’t so expensive,” I say.
This is the opening Nambi is waiting for. He tells me about “desi” cows and the virtues of their milk. “What does ‘desi’ mean?” he asks, and waits for my answer, as a teacher would.
“Native,” I say.
Nambi nods. “Desi means ‘native, local.’ A cow that has been bred in the region for generations, for centuries, so that its skin, hooves, eyes, and most importantly, milk quality is adapted to the environment.”
Nambi isn’t concerned with storied North Indian breeds like the Gir of Gujarat, Rathi of Rajasthan, and Sahiwal of Punjab—named after the regions where they are bred. He is interested in local South Indian breeds. Like Sarala, he comes from a village in Tamil Nadu that is home to ancient Tamil breeds like Kangeyam, Bargur, Pulikulam and Umblachery. The farmers right across the border in Karnataka raise Hallikar, Amrit Mahal, Malnad Gidda, and other cows.
We walk through tiny lanes, surrounded by lily ponds. Jewel beetles shining neon and blue sit somnolently on leaves. Blue and brown butterflies flutter about. Dragonflies buzz. We walk by a large grazing pasture with cows lying under the trees.
“That is a vellamaram tree,” says Nambi. “Cows like eating its seeds but it comes out with the dung.” He points out the different grasses that cattle feed on. There is kolukattai grass (Cenchrus ciliaris). It can retain moisture and disperse its seeds widely. There are thirty types of grasses that cows like to eat, he says, each with an evocative local name. There is nandu pul (crabgrass); kudai pul (purpletop Rhodes grass), which has an umbrella-shaped top; ottam pul (bristle grass); vennam pul, which means “white grass”; kurutu pul (“swollen windmill grass”); chola pul, which means “corn grass”; arugam pul (Bermuda grass); and a variety of creepers and shrubs.
“This one here cures cancer, they say. But we use it for sugar [diabetes],” says Nambi, pointing at a creeper called nathai choori (Borreria hispida).
When I look it up later, I discover papers in Sciencedirect.com corroborating its cancer-fighting properties. The other creepers that cows favor have beautiful tiny flowers: hadupudukanam (Rhynchosia rufescens) with its yellow flowers; cheppunerunji (Indigofera enneaphylla) with its plump, pink flowers; and savarikodi (Merremia tridentata), or arrow-leaf morning glory. Traditional ayurveda therapies use these plants to improve renal function and alleviate urinary-system diseases.
Ayurveda views milk as a cure-all. Short of finding you a spouse, milk, it seems, can achieve a lot, particularly in the personal health area. The Rig Veda extols milk as an ambrosia—one that confers eternal youth. Vasishta, a legendary sage, drank milk from the cow Nandini and remained youthful for ten thousand years. Did the ancients imbue milk with all these qualities because they hadn’t discovered, say, beer and wine?
In the Charaka Samhita, one of the two foundational ayurvedic texts, milk is one of nine products that can be consumed throughout your life, the others being rice, pulses, rock salt, fruits, barley, rain water, ghee, and honey. Sadly, samosas, pizza, and tiramisu, my three favorite foods, don’t make the cut in terms of daily diet.
Ayurvedic texts list a mind-boggling array of benefits that milk offers. “Milk is generally sweet, unctuous, coolant, lactogenic, refreshing, and nourishing,” one of the texts begins. So far so good. But another text also attributes the following properties to milk: “aphrodisiac, useful for intelligence, strength-giving, useful for mental faculties, invigorating, fatigue-dispelling, a reliever of dyspnea and bronchitis.”
Is milk an aphrodisiac? Is this why newlywed Indian couples are offered a glass of hot milk spiked with cardamom and saffron before they head to the honeymoon suite to spend their first night together? Because hot milk promotes a romp in the proverbial hay?
Dairy farmers like Sarala and Nambi believe that linking milk to goodness is only part of the story. The real reason that milk is so good is because it comes from the cow.
“Just think about it,” says Nambi. “A cow eats all these medicinal herbs and grasses and gives us all these wonderful things through its milk. That is the magic of cow’s milk. That is why we worship this animal.”
9
Land of a Million Cows
India has roughly 300 million bovines, the most
of any country in the world. Nambi’s municipality has a fair sample of these animals. Over the next hour, we drive through tiny lanes in search of storied breeds. Some homes are twenty minutes away, some in the next lane. All are occupied by dairy farmers.
Nambi opens the gate of one home. Inside stands a stunning cow with two horns rising straight up. It is a Bargur cow: red with white patches. Like all Bos indicus cows, it has a distinctive hump on its back. As soon as we walk in, the cow stamps and snorts. I revise my opinion about cows as meek and passive. This one looks ready to gore us—sizing us up through the side of its eyes.
“Hey, hey,” Nambi shouts, tightening the cow’s rope.
Hearing the noise, the owner of the cow ambles out of his home, suppressing a yawn. He is dressed in a turban and dhoti, just like Nambi.
“This is the lady I was telling you about,” says Nambi. “The journalist. She is writing about cows and wants to interview us.”
I smile at the spin Sarala has put on this meeting. I consider pulling out my notebook and pen, just to look official, but the cow is taking all their attention. They are sweet-shouting at her, trying to get her to calm down. She isn’t used to strangers, says the owner apologetically. Not like the city cows that can stand in the middle of a street without getting ruffled. I swallow as I remember the dead cow on the street. Seems like Sarala hasn’t told Nambi about the mishap.
After the cow calms down, the owner offers us some—what else—milk. His wife brings out a stainless-steel tumbler filled to the brim with plain white milk. Is it safe? Is it sanitary, I think to myself?
Nambi glances at my face. “Don’t worry. The milk has been boiled. What’s more, it has medicinal value. No diabetes or blood pressure if you drink this.”
With such a stirring recommendation, I feel compelled to taste the hot milk. The two men are looking at me expectantly.
The Milk Lady of Bangalore Page 8