One omen that I have come to detest involves women: sighting a married woman brings about good luck, while sighting a widow is unlucky. As do some other Hindu rituals, this one seems blatantly sexist to me, for no such rule exists for widowers.
Sarala believes in omens and rituals. So in deference to her, we decide to make our next trip on a day of her choosing.
16
The Cattle Fair
It is before dawn when we leave home. Sarala and I are on our way to a weekly santhe (cattle fair), an all-day affair where thousands of cows, bulls, and calves are bought and sold. Selva and I have had a huge fight—well, in a manner of speaking.
Why don’t we visit two or three cattle markets and get a lay of the land before buying a cow, I tell him, particularly since the last few trips have been such debacles.
He cannot take time off from work, he says.
He is willing to spend a ton of money on a cow but cannot exercise due diligence on his investment. I think he would waste less time in the long run if he researched up front.
Why don’t you call your friends and see if a cow is available instead of just showing up? I ask.
Because a cow is available one day and sold the next. It is not like bottled water, where Senthil has a large inventory, Selva replies.
I decide to fly solo. I enlist his mother as co-pilot. We are going to check out a cattle fair by ourselves. Surprisingly, even Sarala hasn’t gone to many of these. She says that it is a man’s job to buy cows. They won’t take women seriously. Her tone implies that they definitely won’t take me seriously. So I play the trump card. I tell Sarala that there is a famous temple that I want to visit. A tribal goddess who will grant all wishes. Sarala, I know, wants another grandchild. She wants her remaining three sons to get married. She wants more calves from her cows, more milk. She needs a wish-granting goddess like no one else. The cattle market is a sideshow as far as she is concerned.
Selva doesn’t even look up from his milking when I tell him that I plan to go to a cattle market that day.
“If you see an animal you like, just buy it,” he mutters.
“He is upset because one of the cows is sick and the vet is demanding lots of money for injections,” Sarala explains. “This is why we need to keep desi cows. They won’t fall as sick.”
That’s neither here nor there. They may hark after native breeds, but in the end, they buy HF cows for the milk.
With Selva’s blessing, such as it is, we set off.
Every village in India seems to have a santhe. The big ones are in North India: Sonepur Cattle Fair in Bihar, where a vast number of cows, and a few elephants, camels, and horses are bought and sold; and in Rajasthan, the famous ones are at Pushkar, Nagaur, Jhalawar, Gangapur, and Kolayat, where camels and cattle are traded with gusto and a measure of trust.
Sarala and I aren’t going to any of those. Our destination is much more modest. It is the cattle fair in Dindigul district in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. This is Sarala’s idea. I don’t speak good Kannada (the language of Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital). Speaking the local language is crucial for negotiation. I do speak fluent Tamil. Why not go to a cattle market in Tamil Nadu? says Sarala. After all, it is only three or four hours away.
I pick up Sarala at 5 a.m. and we are on our way. She and I look like sisters. I have jasmine strings in my hair and a round, red bindi on my forehead. I am clad in a traditional cotton sari. Wearing anything else will make me stand out as a “modern Madam” and will hike up the price of the cow that I may want to buy.
Sarala is a very pleasant companion. She knows when to keep quiet and when to talk. I know she has rarely been out alone with an unrelated lady in a car. When Sarala travels, it is en famille, in a bus or other public transport, and only after a great deal of planning and collecting stuff—food, clothes, and trinkets—as gifts for whomever she is going to visit. Taking off on a lark for a day is something that she has never done, she says.
Plus, she doesn’t know how to buy a cow, she insists. But I have a secret weapon. I am meeting an expert. His name is Johnson Dandapani and I have found him through a twisting ribbon of online connections, all of whom share a love for the cow. “India’s religion is not Hinduism; it is Bos indicus,” writes one of them.
We see many species of Bos indicus as we drive through the winding roads. Sarala points them out like Ram points out cars on American highways.
“Oh, wow, look at that black Konga cow,” says Sarala. “Its horns alone will make it a prize cow.”
“We just passed an Ongole bull,” she says later. “I haven’t seen those in years.”
“That is a Malai Konga cow. Reared by tribal Todas on top of the Blue Mountains. Their milk is like nectar.”
Dust flies behind my small car as we turn onto smaller and smaller roads. Boys playing with tires jump up when they see me on the country roads. “Hey, look. A woman is driving the car,” shouts one as they all run beside the car.
Our first stop is Sathyamangalam, where Sarala has family. It is a small village in Tamil Nadu, known for its Boom Boom maadu (Boom Boom cow), which can predict the future. The last trip was a failure, Sarala says, because we didn’t get proper blessings, didn’t check omens. This time, she wants to get the blessing from a cow to buy another of its species. A particular group of tribal people ply this trade.
Sarala and I pull up in front of her relative’s hut just as the sun rises. It is 7 a.m. There is a welcome committee waiting for us. They offer us kanji, which is chilled porridge made with millets, buttermilk, chopped onion, green chilies, and salt. As we eat outside, we hear the sound of cowbells. Along comes a gaily festooned cow on a long leash held by a tribal cowherd. The cow has a pink blanket on its back and a trail of bells around its neck and all over its back—draped like Christmas lights on a tree. Its horns are capped with bells and its hooves have anklets.
Sarala has brought offerings for the cow that can predict the future. She holds out a plate of sugarcane, coconut, beaten and sweetened rice, jaggery, some lentils, groundnut, and hay. The man stands in front of Sarala and me and addresses us in a sing-song voice. “Thanks to the Lord of the Seven Hills, we are here to give some good news to this wonderful couple—actually two women, but they are like our mothers. They are like cows, which also are our mothers. And what would you wish to say to these two cow-mothers? Do you have good news for them?”
The cow nods its head. Boom boom, clang the bells.
“Will their families be healthy and prosperous?”
Boom boom. The cow nods its head.
“Will the activity that brings them to our village be successful?”
Again, the cow nods vigorously.
“Okay, since you have given them good tidings, why don’t you honor them with a bow.”
The cow bends on its ankles like a circus elephant and bows its head.
Sarala is beaming. “When I was a girl, we never used to start on an enterprise before getting the blessing of the Boom Boom cow and a parrot that could tell the future,” she says. She offers the plate of goodies to the cowherd, who scoops them all up in the yellow, hand-stitched bag that he is carrying. I slip a couple of bills in the bag as well and off they go. We hear the bells long after they disappear from sight.
Now Sarala is ready for the market.
It is hard to miss a cattle fair. Everyone in the village is heading to it that morning. Men leading cows; cows leading men . . . well, that’s pretty much it. We reach an open ground with cows as far as the eye can see: gray, black, and white bovines that stand placidly in the receding mist, waving their tails to swat flies and stamping their feet every now and then. There are trees in the middle and makeshift tea stalls in some corners.
Sarala and I go to a tea stall and wonder how we are going to find my cow adviser, Johnson, in this sea of men. As it turns out, he finds us. Women are few and far between at a cattle fair.
“Shoba Madam?” says a voice. I turn and find a y
oung man, probably in his twenties, thin and gangly, with skin the color of midnight and eyes that shine. He looks both tentative and tough, if that is possible. He is wearing a white dhoti and a matching starched, white shirt.
He smiles uncertainly, glancing at both of us. Sarala is in a good mood. She is chewing peanuts and nods at the young man expansively. He politely asks if we had a comfortable journey and offers to buy us some tea. He works in a call center and has taken time off to come and meet us.
Shouldn’t we rush into the market before all the best cows get sold? I ask.
Neither Sarala nor Johnson is in a rush. They savor the tea and the morning sunshine. They are relaxed and cheerful. Life’s little moments to be enjoyed. I force my whirring brain to slow down and take a few deep breaths. No hurry, I tell myself. Be in the moment. We are just exploring.
Sarala and Johnson have exchanged their family trees and already discovered mutual friends. Johnson says that he is a “converted Christian.” His parents are Hindu but he converted to Christianity because he wanted to join the army. People told him that Christians were needed to fill a quota and he would get in more easily. Turned out he didn’t pass the physical exam because he had a hole in his heart. By then it was too late. “I had become a Christian,” he says. “Too much work to reconvert back into Hinduism.”
We finish our tea and wade into the market. I pick my way behind Johnson, ignoring the curious stares from the men all around.
“What kind of cow do you want to buy?” he asks.
“I am not sure. A good milker?”
I look at Sarala for cues but she is reveling in being amidst the cows. She strokes the back of one as she passes by, touches the forehead of another, pats a third, and nuzzles a fourth.
Johnson says, “Buying a cow is like entering a marriage. A cow that is good for me may not be good for you. Can you marry my wife?”
Over the next hour, we examine several Indian cows, each with a hump on its back. “Go purathaha iti go-puram,” says Johnson in Sanskrit. “Because of this raised hump, the temple structure is called go-puram.” All Hindu temples have a raised go-puram (pyramid-like structure) like the spire of a church. The larger ones have it on four sides. I hadn’t realized that the name for this architectural element was borrowed from the cow (go). I wish those composting kids were here with me. Imagine that, I would tell them. Yet another thing—this time an Indian architectural icon—originating from a bovine icon.
Sometimes the cow’s hump is a little off center. That is not good. An imbalanced hump leads to an imbalanced cow. Then there is the dewlap that hangs from below the neck. In a bull, the dewlap should not hang lower than the “sheath” or the underbelly. A hanging dewlap in a bull is a symbol of infertility, says Johnson. But we are not in the market for a bull so it really doesn’t matter.
The most important thing to check is the whorls that appear on different parts of the cow. Johnson points at the cow that has a whorl—where the fur grows in the opposite of the usual direction. “If there is an umbrella-shaped whorl on the umbrella-shaped forehead of the cow, it can give good things to one person, or one blow after another for another person,” says Johnson. It sounds more musical in Tamil.
He describes a cow that his family bought with just such a whorl. “The cow brought so much good luck for me. I had a business selling turmeric and my business boomed after the cow arrived. It brought bad luck for my father, on the other hand. His wells went dry after the cow arrived and so his farm gave less paddy. Same family. Same cow. Different outcomes.”
After they sold the cow, the opposite happened. Johnson’s turmeric business collapsed but his father’s water situation improved.
“So what do you do? Try out the cow to see if it brings you luck?” I ask jokingly.
To my surprise, Johnson nods. “That’s how it used to be done in the old days,” he says. “Anytime you bought a valuable object, be it a diamond or a cow, you’d keep it at home for a few days to see what effect it had on your family. If it brought bad luck, you could return the cow, no questions asked. Because the same cow could bring good luck to another family.”
“What is called ‘right fit’ in the corporate world,” I murmur.
Sarala tells me about whorls on the underbelly of the cow. Johnson’s expertise has made her insecure. She feels that she has to prove herself.
“Lots of people use whorls as a reason to discard cows. I am not one of those,” she says, frowning disapprovingly at Johnson as if he were one of those offenders. “Whorls are like a dish antenna, or a blueprint. They tell you a lot about the nervous system and energy flow in the animal.”
“Yes, Akka. You are so right,” says Johnson, endearing himself to her by calling her “Akka” (elder sister) and massaging her ego. “The trick is to match the animal’s energy and temperament to yours. For example, if you are a rough and tough sort, you can buy an animal with a double whorl in the flank. This means that the cow is high-spirited; it has a dual personality. Needs to be handled with care.”
“In my family, we never buy animals with double whorls—two whorls on the same side of the flank,” says Sarala. “Better to have one whorl on one flank and the other on the other flank. That means that the whorls are equally balanced on both sides. Then, that animal will be well-balanced, passive. Even an old person like my husband can handle such a cow.”
Johnson nods vigorously. “The trick is to choose the animal based on your capabilities, not the animal’s capabilities.”
This time, Sarala nods agreement. They all nod, even the cows.
Actually, though these theories sound a little crazy, hair whorls have long fascinated horse and cattle breeders, as well as animal scientists, who have linked them to temperament. Dr. Temple Grandin, the author of Animals in Translation, showed a connection between “high whorls” above the animal’s forehead and an excitable temperament. On her website, she uses horses as examples to prove her points, but I guess the same could apply to cows.
As we slowly pick our way through the animals, I am drawn to a red cow with its calf nearby. Its owner watches as the three of us walk around the animal. Diagonally opposite the urethra is a whorl. “This is called a water swirl,” says Johnson. He takes some mud and rubs it on the swirl. Immediately, the animal starts urinating.
He quickly walks away from the animal. Sarala and I follow him. “People will usually avoid buying a cow with a water swirl,” he says. “They may give you good milk but they are high maintenance. They have a loose urethra. Incontinence.”
Sarala adds, “They are high-strung animals and require a lot of love and affection. The only time when people will buy these types of animals is when they have more than six cows so that their temperaments balance each other. They will get affection and sympathy from each other. I have one such cow in my herd. The other cows have calmed her down.”
I cannot take my eyes away from the red cow. She is a beautiful animal with an arched forehead, hanging ears, lots of skin under her neck (the dewlaps), and eyes the size of oval macaroons. She likes me, too. I can tell by the way her eyes follow me. She has an air of utter trust and stillness—it calms me down yet quickens my pulse.
“How much is he asking for it?”
Johnson whips out a towel, throws it over his hand. This is a signal. The owner clasps Johnson’s hand. Sarala tells me that it is all a matter of clasping the hand and pressing. If you press one time, it means that you are offering a particular amount that varies from market to market. It could mean a thousand or ten thousand rupees.
“This is why women don’t come to the santhe,” says Sarala. “Which man will take a woman’s hand under the towel and start pressing her palm? The woman’s husband will cut off the other man’s hand.”
Johnson pulls us aside after the negotiation. He tells us that he has pressed six times—for an offer price of sixty thousand rupees.
“But I didn’t tell you to make an offer!” I say. “I just wanted to know the price.”
<
br /> “Oh really? Iyyo.” Tamil for “Oh, dear.” Johnson stares at me uncertainly.
“Tell him that you pressed his hand by accident.”
“You can’t. When you are negotiating under the towel, your word is the law.”
Or the press of the hand is the law.
Thankfully for us, the seller wants eighty thousand for the cow. It is a young heifer, he says. A virgin cow that hasn’t calved. After two calves, the heifer will be called a cow.
The lack of a contract or any other legal paper has made me both rash and confident. “What happens if we agree on a price but don’t take the cow?” I ask.
Sarala stares at me horrified. “They will beat us up and not let us leave this place without paying the money,” she replies simply.
“How do you bring the price down to fifty thousand?” I ask.
“I can’t. I have already offered sixty K,” Johnson hisses in colloquial Tamil, staring at me.
We are all at cross-purposes. Both Sarala and Johnson don’t understand what I am doing. To be fair, I am not sure what I am doing either.
“Why do you want this incontinent cow, Madam?” asks Sarala.
“Do you think it will give good milk?” I ask in return.
Sarala nods. The milk quality is not the problem.
“Why do you care about incontinence?” I push. “After all, it is not as if the animal lives on a carpet and you have to clean up the urine each time. Just let it drain out of the cowshed. Or sell the urine. Isn’t it better if you touch her back and she urinates? You can have a bottle at the ready.”
The Milk Lady of Bangalore Page 15