Sarala smiles. “I see now what is happening. You have fallen in love with this animal. That happened to me all the time. Okay, let us see if she is destined to be yours.”
Johnson smiles. He, too, gets it now.
I am not sure if I have fallen in love with the red cow. But I really want to bid for this animal. I am confident that the seller won’t lower the price. I want to see how this plays out. I have back-up plans and rationalizations. If by chance the seller does cave, I am stuck with a cow, albeit one that we got at a good price. Or we can simply leave town without paying. In my mind, all these are possible scenarios.
Johnson walks back to the man. There is a small group of turbaned men who are watching us. Probably placing bets on whether these city slickers will get the cow or be outsmarted by one of them, I think sourly.
Sarala tries to explain how the smaller negotiations happen, though she isn’t completely certain, having never done it before. “If you press his thumb alone, you are asking for a 10 percent discount. If you press the index finger, 20 percent discount. And so it goes,” she says.
We watch the two men, a towel over their hands, their eyes locked on each other but otherwise motionless.
Johnson walks back to us, shaking his head. I open my mouth but Sarala shushes me into silence. The code of the market is that the actual prices aren’t talked about aloud. Nobody needs to know each cow’s price except the buyer and the seller, she says. That is the whole point of covering your hands with a towel.
“Cows are like humans. Each cow is different. That’s why each animal has a unique price,” she says. “Discussing the cow’s price in public is disrespectful. Would you discuss your daughter’s price in public? Even if you had to get her married off and give her a dowry?”
I don’t get the analogy but am not really listening. The red cow is looking at me. She is mine. I know it. If Selva doesn’t like this cow, I’ll just buy him another. That’s how mesmerized I am by this cow. I’m no longer being rational.
“How did it go?” I ask Johnson. “Did he bring down the price even a little?”
The seller is firm, says Johnson. We have several things against us. First of all, these men aren’t taking us seriously, he says.
When I ask why, he hesitates.
“Because we are women.” Sarala has an answer. “From the city. Why would they trust us?”
But there is more, Johnson tells us. The real reason for his stubbornness is that he doesn’t want to sell his cow to us city folks who live far away.
Sarala understands. “Madam, you are a mother,” she says. “If you had a choice between marrying off your daughter to someone from the next town and someone from North India, wouldn’t you choose the man close by? So that you can at least go and visit your girl once in a month. The same with this cow. The seller may not have the money to maintain her but he wants to see her, make sure she is okay. If he sells to us and we take her to Bangalore, he knows that he will never see his cow again. Why would he do that?”
At that moment, I realize that we are wasting our time. Nobody in this cattle market will sell to us, no matter what the price. It turns out to be true. We walk around for a few hours. With every cow, I increase my offer price, knowing that I am being reckless yet unable to stop myself. Johnson negotiates for various cows, even the ones he doesn’t recommend because they have whorls indicating personalities that won’t suit mine.
How do you know my personality? I ask.
Again he hesitates. “City people are used to getting their way,” he says. “They think that money can buy anything. Mostly it can. But not a cow. This black cow that you were willing to pay ninety thousand rupees for is equally strong-minded. Look at this whorl on one side of its neck. That shows stubbornness. If I saddle you with an opinionated cow . . . ”
He and Sarala look at each other and laugh.
“It will result in a volcano,” she says.
“The cow is for Sarala,” I say. “And anyway I am not stubborn. I am actually very soft and flexible. I can manage a cow with any personality. You should meet my family . . . They are all so headstrong and I get along with them . . . ”
Sarala and Johnson have walked on.
The sun gets higher and the earth gets hotter. Around noon, Sarala and I walk out of the market with no cow. As soon as I get into the car, I take a deep breath and feel the rush of bidding for animals drain away from me. Is this how auctions work? People walk in with no intention of buying anything and yet can’t stop themselves from raising the paddle higher and higher? What was I thinking? Thank God the sellers were more sensible than me.
“We didn’t go to that temple,” says Sarala, trying to console me. “That is why we didn’t get the red cow.”
“But we did visit the Boom Boom cow first,” I reply, even though I am not sure I need consolation. I feel strange, wobbly. It’s like a crash after a sugar high.
“So what about the good-luck temple that you told me about?”
I feel ashamed for lying to her. I consider whether I should lie some more and take her to some random temple in the area. After all, Indian villages are full of temples.
I tell her the truth. I apologize. I tell her that I will pray that she gets another grandchild, a girl this time.
Sarala nods. I cannot tell if she is mad at me or just hungry like I am.
Johnson takes us to his simple but gorgeous mud house. There are white drawings on the walls. Fifteen cows graze in the back field. Red chilies are spread out on the verandah in front to sun-dry. Johnson’s mother makes us a simple lunch of hot red rice with some gravy—it looks like sambhar but I am not really sure. Banana leaves are spread out on the floor. We sit cross-legged while Johnson’s mother serves. Hot red rice, some ghee, and a gravy. Heavenly.
A few hours later, Sarala and I take our leave. We don’t talk much in the car. Sarala naps. It is evening by the time we hit the outskirts of Bangalore.
“Let’s have some tea in my cousin’s house, Madam,” says Sarala.
We turn off the highway once more and drive down winding country roads. The sun is setting. Dusk is a magical time in Indian villages. The heat of the day recedes and a pleasant chill settles like a blanket. It is the time when mother cows rush home to be with their calves. I told the kids about it during the composting lesson. It’s when the dust from their hooves, called go-dhuli (cow dust), rises up and creates a phantasmagorical landscape. Women stack cow-dung patties into a pyramid-shaped mound and set fire to them. Smoke rises like tendrils. A reddish hue spreads across the sky as the sun sets.
Go-dhuli bela means cow-dust time. Go is cow, dhuli is dust, and bela is time. According to Sanskrit scholar Bibek Debroy this is “a very Bengali expression.” Debroy, with whom I communicate through email, is the author of an unabridged translation of the Mahabharata epic. “The three sandhyas [dawn, noon, dusk] are auspicious and important, especially dawn and dusk, because they represent ‘joins’ in divisions of the day. It also happens to be the time that the cows come home.”
These “joins” are important in Hinduism because they signify the hours when the gods come out to play. There are songs, shows, and movies that center around cow-dust time. The most famous Indian film about it is by Girish Karnad and B. V. Karanth, who belong to my home state of Karnataka, in South India. In 1977, they made a Hindi film called Godhuli, based on a short story by Munshi Premchand. The much-lauded film is about what cows mean to a family and village. The film opens with the village headman’s son, Nandan, who has returned to India with his American wife, Lydia. Young Nandan wants to reform the village. He views cows merely as dairy products rather than symbols central to the rural milieu. (It’s not unlike my cousin Vic’s disdain for the cow rituals his father insisted on in his new apartment.)
Nandan starts a dairy business with modern farming techniques. When a cow stops producing, he sends the aging cow to the slaughterhouse. Hearing this, the incensed village priest curses the entire family. Your clan will come
to an end because you are sending a cow to her death, he says. Nandan’s mother donates cows to the village priest to appease him, so that he will retract his curse. Lydia becomes pregnant. Does the American wife deliver a baby? Is the baby’s life threatened? Does the cow die? Does the young man win over the village or does he pack up and return to America? Well, you’ll have to watch the film to see.
North Indians celebrate weddings and engagements during cow-dust time. In South India, though, it is viewed a little more cautiously. For my cousins and me, Vic included, walking back exhausted from swimming and playing at the river, this cow-dust time was when our mothers called us inside. Evil spirits were freed from the trees under the cloak of the descending darkness, they said. Better to stay indoors. We children would wash our feet, apply sacred ash (also made from cow dung, by the way), on our foreheads, say our prayers in front of the family puja altar, and get down to the hated chore of homework.
Sarala and I witness this magical cow-dust time as we drive to her cousin’s house. Smoke snakes out of small village bonfires. Dust is stirred up by the feet of herds running home. The sun casts an orange haze over the landscape. We drink some tea, wait for the dust to settle and the sun to set, and slowly make our way back home.
17
Buying a Cow
A week later, Selva has some news. “Reddy has a cow,” he tells his mother. Reddy is a man who sold them a cow in the past. When Selva called three weeks ago, Reddy told Selva that he had no cows for sale. Apparently that has changed. So we go to visit Reddy.
Varthur village lies beyond the gated communities just outside Bangalore. Kuppa is driving. Today Sarala’s elder son, Senthil, is also with us. He rides shotgun, hopping off at every traffic signal to avoid getting fined by cops. We get into a skirmish because a red Honda Accord bangs into our rickshaw. Kuppa and the two boys leap out to argue with the errant driver. After an hour of discussion, the man pays them five dollars. Sarala and I sit in the rickshaw, chewing on peanuts and discussing our lives.
We have wasted an hour for five bucks, I think but don’t say.
Vegetable vendors line the entrance to Varthur village with fresh greens, tomatoes, and the rest of the day’s harvest piled in stacks. We stop to buy some vegetables for our homes, place them in the back of the rickshaw before carrying on.
Rajashekar Reddy is tall and imposing, with the deliberate gait of age and encumbrances. He welcomes us with the cordiality of a man who is about to see good money, and takes us to his cows. There are four of them in the paddock, feeding on hay. As always, Sarala is all admiration—for the cows, the setting, and Reddy. Her husband is not with her so she can be free with her compliments.
“See how strong he is,” she nods towards Reddy. “Drinking fresh milk daily, breathing this eucalyptus-scented air, eating homegrown vegetables harvested from this red earth. What’s not to like about this life?”
In her voice, I hear longing. She has told me that Selva dreams of returning to Arni, their native village, buying a few cows and a small plot of land, and living a life that Reddy seems to enjoy now. The only problem is that they have a lot of debts and until those are repaid, they are tied to the city.
Selva and Senthil examine the four cows in the paddock. The animals grunt and stamp when the boys approach them. “Hey, hey,” they say, quieting the cows. They open the mouth of one cow, smell its saliva, lift its tail, peer into its rectum, and look at the legs for sores or wounds.
Reddy shows us the calf, which has apparently been raised on bucket milk. We learn that it was not fed from its mother’s udder.
“That’s not good,” Sarala whispers to me. “Just to save yourself the work of untying the calf every morning and then leading it back from its mother after it feeds, these people have taken a shortcut. Shouldn’t the calf experience the pleasure of drinking milk from its mother? Doesn’t the cow deserve to honor its maternity by feeding its young? Bad for the mother; bad for the calf.”
The two boys choose one of Reddy’s cows. Like all these cows, it is a Holstein-Friesian with black and white markings. I can’t see any difference from the other three. It looks healthy, well fed, and amiable. When I walk close to it, the cow glances at me from the corner of its eye but remains unconcerned.
Reddy wants $1200 for it and does not want to bargain. He bought it for $1300 a couple of years ago, he says. It is a good milker, giving about seventeen liters of milk per day. By now, I am getting used to this urban myth that Bangalore cows give seventeen liters of milk a day—no more, no less. Everyone quotes seventeen.
Selva comes to me and says that it will be hard to beat this deal. “You saw how it is,” he says. “People won’t reduce their price just like that.”
I ask Reddy if he will take $1000. That’s all the money I have with me, I say. We go back and forth for a while. Our language is flowery, yet laced with insults.
“I am getting the good fortune of buying a cow for the first time. Why don’t you let me have that good karma by lowering your price?” I ask Reddy. “Why must you fleece me?”
“It is my honor that a lady from a big apartment complex has come to buy my cow,” replies Reddy. “Why would I cheat you? I want more business people who read computers like you. Only if you patronize cows will this country succeed.”
I don’t see the connection between cows and this country’s success, but I let it go.
“Reduce the price by $200 and make it $1000 even,” I say, coming straight to the point, like these people do.
“No can do, Madam,” replies Reddy. “This is a good cow. Its milk will taste like ambrosia. Drink it and you are set for life. But then, what will you computer people know about the value of a good cow?”
Selva speaks Kannada and he steps in. The men get down to business. The negotiation concludes in minutes. “He won’t come down below $1100,” says Selva.
“I don’t have that much,” I reply, pulling out the $1000.
“It’s all right,” says Selva. “Pay him what you have and we can take him the rest tomorrow.”
Reddy brings out a brass plate with betel leaves, betel nuts, a broken coconut, and a few bananas—all symbols of fertility and prosperity—for our new cow. She has a stillness about her that is both reassuring and eerie. All cows are contemplative. Our cow is positively Zen. Selva, Sarala, and I stand on one side, holding the brass plate and laying our cash on it. Reddy and his cow stand on the other. Senthil takes photos on his mobile phone. The deal is concluded.
Reddy ceremoniously leads us to his house—a one-room dwelling, sparsely furnished, with electric-blue walls and a black, concrete floor. We sit on chairs. Reddy’s daughter-in-law brings out hot milk, tea, biscuits, peanuts, and savory snacks. Reddy urges us to eat. Sarala does her eyebrow-raised, half-smile expression of admiration.
“Now that he has our money, he can afford to be generous,” she mumbles.
We chew on peanuts and exchange gossip about cows. Reddy tells us that the cow we are buying has a good temperament. “She won’t run; she won’t hit you with her horns. She is a family-oriented cow.”
A little while later, the van arrives. The men bring a wooden plank, angle it against the van, stand behind the cow and push. After resisting a bit, the surprised cow scoots up the plank and into the van. Kuppa has left with the rickshaw, so we can ride back together with our cow to Bangalore: humans in front and the cow in the back. The trip costs ten dollars. I run up to my apartment and come back down to the van to give Selva and Sarala the remaining money for the cow.
“Why don’t you buy us the first feed? That will give you some extra good fortune,” suggests Sarala.
We go to a shop very near my house and buy cow feed. The typical ratio is crushed whole maize (30 percent), cottonseed-extract cakes (20 percent), milled legumes like horse gram, soy, black-eyed peas (15 percent), milled wheat (15 percent), and salt, mineral, and vitamin mix for the remainder. It comes to one hundred fifty dollars.
The van deposits us outside Saral
a’s cowshed at the end of my road. Its location, right beside the milk parlor and the drain, allows for outlets for all of the cow’s secretions. Sarala and her family toss the cow dung into the drain and sell leftover milk to the Nandini milk booth. After the van leaves, Sarala asks me to hold the reins, and with great solemnity we walk our cow into her new home: a thatched-roof cowshed with a dirt floor.
“Name her, Madam,” says Sarala.
Here? I think, looking at the cow dung on the floor, the stink of the drain nearby and the three other cows staring at me. What did I expect? The White House? Sarala and her boys are in a hurry. They have to return to work. Selva has to bathe the cows; Senthil has to go deliver water; Sarala needs to go home to cook for her family.
They tell me to come up with a name and whisper it into the cow’s ear three times. The name has to end with Lakshmi. Otherwise the name won’t set, says Sarala.
Okay, I say, let’s call her Raja Lakshmi. Royal Lakshmi.
That’s taken.
What about Dhana Lakshmi—Prosperous Lakshmi? Taken, too. Gaja Lakshmi—Elephant-venerating Lakshmi? Taken. All the eight traditional Lakshmi (Ashta Lakshmi) names—Brave Lakshmi, Child-holding Lakshmi, Brilliant Lakshmi—are already taken by Sarala’s herd.
It can end with Gowri, too, says Sarala, as a compromise.
I tell her that I will think about it. Let us choose a good day for this important undertaking, I hedge.
At home, I suddenly discover that I have lots of friends. “My daughter has bought a cow,” my mom tells her siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles excitedly. Everyone has suggestions about names. My kids want to name the cow Laika, after the first dog that orbited space.
But it is a cow, not a dog, I say.
No matter, it is an animal, they reply.
“Will Laika-Lakshmi work?” I ask Sarala.
“Laika sounds like the name of a detergent powder,” she replies.
My uncle wants me to name the cow after my great-grandmother, Seshambal, but Seshambal Lakshmi is too verbose.
The Milk Lady of Bangalore Page 16