“Do you taste it?” they ask.
“What?”
“The herbs and grass that she has eaten?”
I shake my head.
“She is not able to taste the difference because we boiled the milk,” says the owner regretfully. “To truly enjoy milk, you have to taste it straight from the udder. Raw. Fresh.”
I down the contents of the glass before they take the idea any further.
“Delicious,” I say.
“What does it taste of?” asks the owner of the cow.
“Milk? Herbs? Hay?” I venture.
They nod approvingly.
The milk tasting continues. In another village is a Kangeyam cow, a sturdy draft animal that is native to these parts. The same routine happens. Nambi hands me some boiled milk.
“We can sell a Kangeyam cow’s milk for double the price of normal milk,” says Nambi. “People come long distances to buy this milk.”
Then comes an Umblachery. By the fifth cow, I can tell the difference. Or at least I have identified some parameters by which I can tell the difference. I hate to sound like a pretentious wine snob, but it has to do with the scent of the earth, the hints of hay, the herbaceous notes, and the heaviness or lightness of texture. Also, how I feel after drinking each cow’s milk.
“Does the personality of the milkman matter?” I ask.
They stare at me.
“You know, just as the quality of the food has to do with the mood and temperament of the chef,” I explain.
Oh sure, they say. But I know that they aren’t buying my theory.
The life of a dairy farmer is brutal. They don’t have the time or energy for niceties. I am being naïve. And of course thinking that tasty food comes from a happy chef is a view that will be overturned by anyone who has entered a restaurant kitchen. Similarly, dairy farmers mostly scold, shout, slap, and prod their cows. I have never seen a milkman who sings to a cow. They may feel affection for it but that gets lost in the busyness of the milking cycle. Just like you wouldn’t know I love my kids if you came to our home at 6:30 a.m. and listened to me yelling and threatening them to get ready for school.
Milk from a Malnad Gidda is lighter than that of a Hallikar. A Malnad cow is used to a rainy monsoon climate, says Nambi. The people it serves are prone to monsoon-induced mucus—coughs and colds. As a result, its milk has evolved to be less mucus-giving, more medicinal with antibodies against the flu and cold season. The Hallikar prefers calcium-rich grasses. Drinking just a shot of Hallikar milk is enough to give you enough strength for a bullfight. Drinking milk from these cows, says Nambi, is the way to live, because such milk gives not just nutrients but also antibodies that prevent and improve health.
“You will never get a cold if you drink a desi cow’s milk,” he says.
This is when I get excited. In Bangalore, a number of residents are allergic to parthenium (feverfew); for them the plant causes runny nose, sneezing, and asthma. Perhaps local breeds ate parthenium-type plants, and as a result their milk might help people develop a resistance to the allergens in the environment? Nambi doesn’t understand my long-winded explanation but nods anyway.
India’s National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources lists forty indigenous breeds of cattle, all belonging to the Bos indicus species. The actual number is more like sixty-five, which, activists say, is down from the 110 to 130 native breeds that India used to have. They range from the Vechur, the size of a golden retriever; to the mighty Brahman that has now been exported to and is popular in Brazil; to the aristocratic Amrit Mahal cow that delivers what farmers believe is the nectar of immortality, from all orifices of the body; to the Red Sindhi cow, with its lovely hanging dewlaps and high hump on its back; to the Gir, which has half-moon-shaped horns that add to its inquiring gaze; to the Tharparkar, which can cross deserts on only a single drink of water; to the Punjabi Sahiwal that delivers the highest quantity of milk.
The problem is that Indian cows have been crossbred with foreign Holstein-Friesian and Jersey breeds to the point where the indigenous Indian cow may become extinct. An Indo-Canadian environmental protection NGO called Ankush lists twenty-seven Indian breeds that are already extinct. These breeds, distinct and specific to their regions, evolved over millennia. Umblachery cows have shorter legs than the Kangeyam, for instance, which makes it easier for them to walk around the swampy, marshy, water-fed regions of the river delta where they live. The hilly-region cows such as the Malai Maadu and the Malnad Gidda are as agile as goats over mountainous terrain. The quality of their milk is different, too.
Holstein-Friesian (HF) is the most common breed among dairy farmers in Bangalore. These are the cows that Sarala owns and milks. Are native Indian cows all that different from these high-yielding hybrids? As it turns out, they are. Some ten thousand years ago, a genetic mutation occurred amongst cattle, causing the beta casein (or protein) in their milk to convert from what is called “A2” to “A1” milk.
All the Indian breeds deliver the premutation A2-type milk. So do camels, sheep, goats, donkey, buffaloes, and yaks. So do Jersey cows—the indigenous Western hemisphere breed.
Now here is the thing: some research has shown that the premutational, ancient A2 milk is better than A1 milk, in terms of health benefits. A big proponent of this theory is Keith Woodford, a professor in New Zealand and author of Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health, and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk (with the rather specific subtitle, lest you had doubts about its content or point of view). In his book, Woodford suggests that the type of milk we consume these days might well be the cause of much of the health ailments that we endure.
Studies link A1 milk, which most of us consume these days, to irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhea, bloating, arteriosclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and even autism and schizophrenia. A study titled, “Polymorphism of Bovine Beta-casein and Its Potential Effect on Human Health,” listed in PubMed, states that “neurological disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia, seem to be associated with milk consumption and a higher level of BCM-7,” which is found in A1 milk.
Proponents of A2 believe that milk from indigenous breeds like Guernsey and Jersey and the Bos indicus species is better than milk from hybrid breeds such as Holstein-Friesian. In the US, for instance, a company called a2 Milk sells what it calls “the original milk that feels better” at The Fresh Market and other specialty stores. In India, though, milk from Bos indicus cows is still the “alternative” milk.
“I want to buy milk from a desi cow, not a crossbreed,” I say.
Nambi nods and agrees. “We all know that milk from desi breeds is better,” he says. “The problem is that they only give a few liters: enough for a family but not for a livelihood. Only Hare Krishna ashrams sell this type of milk.”
His family owned an Amrit Mahal, a fabled gray breed that was developed in the eighteenth century by Tipu Sultan. The cow’s milk was like nectar, he says, even though it wasn’t a great milker. They had to send it out to pasture, a euphemism for saying that it died of old age. “It ate some specific grasses that compressed her kidneys and slowly called it a day,” says Nambi. “What an amazing animal it was. Could outrun a horse. Now we are stuck with these half-breeds.”
Detractors link the demise of the desi cow to India’s “white revolution.” In 1970, India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) launched Operation Flood. It created a grid linking small dairy farmers to consumers. And what a flood that created! India surpassed the United States in 1998 as the world’s largest producer of milk. Focusing on milk output, however, was a death knell to the low-yielding native cows.
Had we stuck to local cows, perhaps so many Indians would not be diabetic. That is the message that organizations such as the Desi Cows for Better India Trust want to promote. Sarala also believes that the milk from native cows is special. The problem is that they give less milk than her HF cows. “If I could charge more per liter for native cow’s milk, my entire herd would be Hallikars or Amrit Mahal cows,” she says.
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“Indians should market cow’s milk like the French market cheese,” says Sajal Kulkarni, a researcher with BAIF Development Research Foundation in Pune. “We have to create niche, high-end markets like in France and Italy. We need to charge a higher rate for local indigenous cow’s milk that is suited to the Indian climate and region.”
Should we feel bad that these specialized breeds are going extinct? Or shrug our shoulders and call it evolution and economics?
10
The Scatological Remnants of a Cow
One day, something weird happens. Selva is milking the cows as usual. When he is done with one cow, he carries over the steel bucket full of milk. We all stretch our cans out—like kids collecting candy.
One of Sarala’s regulars, a tall, thin man with cropped army hair, always carries an empty Coke bottle with him. That day, I find out why. As we converge around the milk can, one of the cows starts urinating. The army man jumps out of our circle, races to the cow, and holds out the Coke bottle so that the urine can be collected in it.
When cows let off, it is like a fire hose that has burst open. It doesn’t dribble; it’s more like a waterfall. The army man tries to angle his plastic bottle so that the urine won’t touch his fingers—to no avail. By the time the cow is done, the bottle is almost full. He walks back to us with a slight smile. My daughters would call it “the grossest thing” that they have ever seen, but everyone around nods approvingly.
“What does he do with the urine?” I ask Sarala after the crowd has dispersed.
“I’m not sure,” she replies. “You can put it on your plants as a fertilizer; you can mix it with herbs and take it like a tea. Cow urine is an amazing substance. Practically a cure-all.”
I don’t believe her. I think she is making it up, exaggerating the benefits of cows as usual.
Over the next several days, I befriend the army man and ask him what he does with the cow urine.
“I drink it,” he replies gravely.
How do you respond when someone tells you this—that they drink cow urine? You can either plunge in with more questions or retreat in a cloud of apologies. I choose the former. Does he just drink the urine straight up, like a shot of, say, tequila? Or does he dilute it like green tea? Does he also mix it with food, sprinkling it over oatmeal porridge, like people do with flaxseeds on their salad?
You cannot drink cow urine straight up, he says, looking me in the eye. “It is too much medicinal. I put it in a terra-cotta pot, keep it in a dark, cool place for several days, and allow the sediments to settle. After a week, the clean, clear liquid comes to the top. It is like distillation. Then I scoop out the top part and drink it. Just a teaspoon a day will do.”
You know how it is when something bizarre enters your worldview and you start to see it everywhere? That is how it is with cow urine for me.
One evening, as I run on the treadmill in the gym next door, I watch Sarala’s husband herd his cows for the dusk milking. One of his cows urinates as she walks. Sure enough, out springs a man from within a mechanic shop. He chases the cow as she walks, situating a green Sprite bottle to catch the urine. The cow tries to shoo him off by waving her tail from side to side, but the man is undeterred. He fills his bottle and leaves. Does he pour the cow urine on the cars that have come for repair? Is it for lubricating stuck wheels?
“You should charge people for the urine,” I tell Sarala flippantly one day. She stares at me. I realize that she takes my remark seriously.
“You know, since my family has kept cows for generations, I have started thinking like a cow,” she says. “How does a cow think?”
Is she testing me? I blink. I have no idea. I can’t figure out what she wants me to say. How does a cow think? Does it think of milk? That seems most obvious.
Thankfully, she puts me out of my misery.
“How does a cow think?” she asks. This time, I know it is a rhetorical question. “A cow thinks generously, right? Like she is the mother of humanity,” Sarala answers herself.
I nod even though I don’t agree that a cow has such a macro view on life. It probably thinks about hay and grass and its next meal, not about the milk of human kindness or consumption.
“A cow is the most generous animal in the whole world,” Sarala continues. “Every part of her does good for humans. Even her urine. How can I charge you for cow urine when I take care of animals of this caliber, of this level of generosity?”
I don’t remind her that she has no problem charging for the animal’s milk. What is the difference?
At a party, I recount my witnessing of people catching cow’s urine. However, I don’t get the chuckles I am hoping for. I don’t even get the winking “isn’t India crazy?” looks that usually accompany my “only in India” tales. One of my friends, a high-level executive at Cisco Systems who has just returned from Berlin, tells me that he is giving his mother cow urine as treatment. She has stage IV ovarian cancer, he says.
“The doctors gave her three months to live. She didn’t want to undergo chemotherapy. So we gave her these herbal pills made from cow urine. She has been cancer-free for three years now,” he says.
I discover that an aunt of mine has been bathing in cow urine for years. Not the unadulterated stuff, but she mixes a small cup of urine into a bucket of water and pours it over her body—before a final shower rinse with plain hot water, thankfully. Is this why her skin is so soft and wrinkle-free?
The trick is in sourcing the cow urine, everyone says. You have to get it from free-range, Indian cows that know which grass to eat according to season and time of day. If you can get the first urine of the day from a cow that hasn’t calved, even better.
It turns out that there are a few organizations in India that sell distilled cow urine. One is in Bangalore. And so it comes to be that I stand outside a clinic with a billboard that reads: “Dr. Jain’s Ayurvedic and Cow Urine Therapy.”
“For Chronic Diseases: Cancer, HIV, Tuberculosis, Piles, Asthma, Sugar, Joint Aches, etc.,” the next line breezily proclaims.
The clinic in Bangalore is an outpost of the mother ship in Indore, where some thirty-five hundred indigenous cows are raised for their products. The urine of black cows is given for cancer, white cows for skin diseases, and red cows for gynecological problems. Adjacent to the multi-acre farm is a center where the cow urine is distilled and mixed with ayurvedic herbs. The clinic conducts health camps in which hundreds of people line up to drink a shot glass full of cow urine as a protective measure.
“Look at it this way,” says the man who runs Dr. Jain’s Bangalore franchise. “There are certain indigenous herbs that treat certain diseases, but by the time we pick, preserve, package, and distribute these herbs, they have lost their potency. Immersing the herbs in cow urine not only protects them from degradation but also increases their potency.”
Over the next hour, he explains to me why cow urine is so important medically. It has antibacterial, antioxidant, anticancer, and antifungal properties. It enhances the immune system and counteracts the toxic effects of cancer drugs. Cow urine is an elixir of health, and a strengthener of the heart, intelligence, and long life. It cleanses the blood and balances the three doshas (imbalances due to excess bile/heat, excess mucus, and excess air that cause bloating). It cures heart diseases and counteracts the effect of poison. Wow!
Urine from foreign or hybrid HF cows won’t do, he says. (I make a mental note not to mention this to the people collecting urine from Sarala’s HF cows.) Only the Bos indicus species has the surya-ketu nadi—a type of nerve channel in the raised hump of the Indian cow. This channel attracts and absorbs the health benefits from the sun’s rays and repels all its evil radiation. This is why the products of Indian cows are so curative. Indian cows have that special meridian that absorbs good vibrations from the sun, sky, stars, planets, and mother earth.
It’s true that at first I laughed at drinking cow urine, but feed me a good story and I can believe anything. I am into alternative practices.
Over the course of my long if totally unremarkable career as a wannabe healer, I have studied pulse diagnosis, salt therapy, Rolfing, the Feldenkrais Method, and everything in between. If you tell me, as one Japanese sensei did, that whirling like a dervish will center and connect you to the universal energy floating around, I will believe you. For a month, I woke up and whirled around in my kitchen while my coffee brewed. I listened to what the universe said, but couldn’t fathom it. In New York I occasionally opened my trusty I Ching notebook to figure out if my journalism professor would be in a good mood that day and not chew me out for being late to class. I tried cowrie divination methods in Taos, where I worked as a camp counselor during my senior year in college.
When the cow urine doctor tells me that Indian cows have a special meridian that links them to the sun and planets, it is music to my ears. Then he goes into a long explanation about the influence of planets on our life, and about how a lot of what happens to us is predestined. He says there is a way we can increase “synchronicity,” or good coincidences. “Living in the groove,” he calls it. Aligned with the earth and other species. Cow urine is a pathway to synchronicity, he says. “Drink it for a month and you will start thinking and looking like a twenty-year-old,” he says.
I have heard Deepak Chopra talk about synchronicity and have been trying to game it ever since—through astronomy, astrology, whirling, whatever. Cow urine is now on my list.
“I have hypothyroidism,” I tell the doctor. “Will cow urine help me cure that?”
He shakes his head. “Why don’t you take Thyronorm—thyroxine sodium—tablets? One a day and it will balance out your thyroid.”
I am both impressed and disappointed. Had he been a quack doctor, it would have been easy for him to say yes, that cow urine would cure my hypothyroidism. I am trying so many alternative measures anyway—performing yogic headstands, drinking tulsi (holy basil) tea, massaging my thyroid, and practicing distance Reiki healing. Had my TSH levels come back to normal, the doctor could have claimed that cow urine was the cause. Instead he prescribes Thyronorm, which I am taking anyway. While I respect his honesty, part of me wanted to believe that cow urine really is a panacea.
The Milk Lady of Bangalore Page 9