AL’s son is a glorious specimen of the Holstein-Friesian breed valued by today’s dairy farmers. His snout is broad with flared nostrils and a beautiful curve. His face is well proportioned and his black-and-white coat is silky, with distinctive patterns. I decide to call him Alfie. I shouldn’t, because naming an animal brings it closer to you. And Alfie is destined to leave us.
“Look at the heart shape on its forehead,” says Naidu. “It is perfect for people to touch and pray.” Rickshaw drivers do this. They pass by a cow, touch its forehead, and press a finger prayerfully to their hearts.
Had he been female, the newborn calf would have made a great addition to the herd. Instead, everyone commiserates with Sarala. “What a waste of effort,” they say, clicking their tongues. “Pity it is male.”
Two days later, I go with Sarala to see the calf in his cowshed. He lies beside AL, who is chewing her cud meditatively and staring at us. “AL is worried,” Sarala says. “She is wondering, ‘Why are they here? Are they going to remove my calf?’ ” Though they are, in fact, going to remove Alfie, one of the other cows has also given birth—to a female, thankfully, which they plan to keep. A third cow is pregnant and will deliver in a few weeks.
“Where is the space, Madam, for me to raise three calves?” asks Sarala, pointing around. The urban cowshed is tight with cows: a far cry from breezy, grassy pastures. At night, Alfie and the newborn female calf may get stomped upon by other cows. But there is no separate enclosure, so Sarala and her family take their chances by leaving the calves with their mothers.
We debate what to do next. We are collective owners of a newborn calf and need to build consensus about his future. Why not sell him, I ask? They look at me with pity. No local dairy farmer will buy a male calf. Of what use is it to him?
What about selling to people who have bullock carts? Maybe this male can be used to pull carts after he grows up?
“This breed is too soft,” says Sarala. “HF breeds can’t stand the heat and dust of Indian roads, so it can’t pull carts.”
I shake my head and fantasize about starting a movement against HF cows. Which really has no bearing on the issue at hand—whether or not Sarala and her family can afford to keep Alfie—but dairy farmers in general are too dependent on imported “soft” breeds. Rather than spend money trying to improve the milk yields of the local Bos indicus species, the entire system is taking a shortcut by relying wholly on high-yielding but climatically incompatible foreign breeds.
“It all boils down to milk, Madam,” says Sarala. “If we had money, if we had savings, you think we wouldn’t want to own a native cow or two?
I glare at her. Why does it always boil down to extra milk? “Why don’t you take the calf to your village and sell him to people there?”
“Will you give me the transport to take it?” asks Sarala. “Po, ma [“Get out of here” in Tamil]. The cost of our transport will be more than what we will get for the calf.”
In villages, she says, where people have grazing pastures, they will simply keep a male calf—much like an unwanted widowed aunt or a crotchety uncle whom you need to take care of. “We can’t do that in the city.”
Their solution is to take Alfie the calf to a go-shala (cow shelter) and leave him there.
“You leave old or ailing cows there, the ones you cannot manage,” says Sarala. “They take care of these cows from birth to death.”
I am stunned. “But it is a newborn,” I say. “How can you abandon a newborn calf? How can you take Alfie away from his mother?”
I have heard about these cow shelters. A tour guide in Mumbai showed me one that operated in the heart of that city, beside the Mahalakshmi Temple. They are usually operated by the Jain community, but I also have seen cow shelters affiliated with cult spiritual groups such as the Hare Krishna temple and the Art of Living Foundation, a global network offering meditation and breathing courses among others. (I took an “AoL course” (as they call it) in New York.)
Sarala and Naidu think that a cow shelter is the best place for an unwanted calf. I am torn about whether to influence their decision and, if so, how. One way I can do it is by throwing money at the problem. It won’t take much to subsidize a male calf for a few months, but I doubt that Sarala will use the money I give her to care for Alfie. She will use it to feed the milk-giving cows, and I wouldn’t blame her. The economics of dairy farming are skewed in favor of the milking cows. All through this blazing-hot summer, Sarala has been talking about how cruel the heat is on these animals.
“They are hungry,” she says often, pointing at her herd. A standing cow is an arresting animal because it can look so still. It can look like the most centered animal on earth. You can do yoga for a million years and you still won’t get that unblinking, beguiling gaze. But it still might be starving. “Look at the grass. It is so dry.”
Selva wants to keep Alfie for at least a week more. He says that sending the calf away after just a week with its mother doesn’t “feel right.”
“He likes cows, you see. He wants to hang on to them as long as possible,” says Sarala with a proud smile.
Naidu is against this. He says that we should make a clean break between the mother and child. Longer is riskier. The longer we keep the calf with the mother cow, the harder it will be to wean her, to help her forget her baby once we do take the calf away. Naidu is more concerned about the psychology of the mother-cow than the child. The mother is his livelihood. The calf is a freeloader. “After two weeks, she will miss her baby even more,” says Naidu. “Once the baby goes, she will develop a fever and perhaps withhold milk throughout the lactating cycle. Best to do it quickly.”
Sarala takes the middle road. Some dairy farmers, she says, take the calf away after a single day of colostrum feeding. We have given the calf mother’s milk for about a week. That will help build his resistance even if we move him away from his mother, she says.
They are all worried about the butchers. “They will come and steal the calf, Madam,” says Naidu. “We have put two locks on the cowshed, but there is no guarantee. They can come at night, break open the lock, and take the calf.”
I contemplate keeping Alfie on my balcony. The space is large enough for the tiny calf. Once I get him up the elevator and through the house, it will be easy. Alfie can stand tied to the water pipe. And he can visit his mom every morning and evening during the milkings.
“Your balcony is no better than the go-shala, Madam,” says Sarala. “How will the calf stay in your balcony without its mother? You’ll have to keep the mother there, too.”
A postpregnancy cow is a huge, moody animal. There is no way that I can get AL up my lift and through my living room into the balcony.
Sarala almost clinches it for me by asking one pertinent question: What will you do with the cow dung? Do you know how to remove it?
Why not ask one of the army households to keep Alfie? I suggest the next day. After all, they have land. The calf can be tied up outside a home.
She tried that once, says Sarala. Some years ago, they had a male calf—their first. They didn’t want to give it to the cow shelter. Selva wanted to raise it for a few months and then let it loose on the road. “Cows are self-sufficient animals. Once you raise them, they will wander around the neighborhood. They can even forage for food. They may just come to lie down in front of your building.” Sarala had asked an army family if they would keep the calf tied outside at night. A few days after the calf was born, she took it one night and tied it to a tree outside one of the army homes.
“Some stray dogs came at night and tore into it. They ate the whole little calf. Only its head was left over when I came the next morning. Can you imagine how I felt? I couldn’t sleep for an entire month after that. I got the willies after seeing that poor dead thing. How can a family sleep when a calf is being eaten by dogs, Madam? Didn’t they hear the calf bleat?” Sarala shivers.
I have nothing to say.
“You think we give away calves on purpose?”
she asks. “We give them away because we have no choice.”
Next I suggest sending the calf to the villages where they use bulls for Jallikattu, annual events where young men try to hang on to bulls as they run through the village. I have seen this sport in interior Tamil Nadu.
Sarala shakes her head. Jallikattu (which is the Indian version of bull-fighting or rather bull-hugging—bull-clinging, really) is done with native breeds, particularly the Pulikulam breed, she says.
To confirm this, I call Himakiran Anukula, a lover of native breeds, who studied engineering in Wisconsin and returned to India to be an organic farmer. I came across him thanks to a spirited defense of Jallikattu he mounted when the supreme court of India decided to ban the sport, practiced over centuries and millennia in the Madurai region of Tamil Nadu. He confirms that native breeds with humps are the ones used for Jallikattu. Alfie, no matter how willing, would not be welcome. He simply didn’t have the “balls” to deal with hundreds of young men high on testosterone.
Over the next few days Sarala and her family help me get used to the idea of the cow shelter and we finally get on the same page. We will leave the newborn male calf at a go-shala. I agree it is the only option available.
“Don’t worry, Madam,” says Naidu. “These Jain people take very good care of the cows. It is like being in a cow hotel. You should see them on full moon days. Truckloads of jaggery and other delicacies arrive.”
But he knows, and I know, too, that he is merely rationalizing our decision.
On Monday morning, the security guard calls my home. “There is a calf waiting for you,” he says. This sounds better in Hindi. I go down and see Alfie standing outside my building gate. He is a gorgeous animal with a pink snout, and wide, alert ears. At that moment, I decide to retract the name I have given him. As if that will help me feel better about having already become attached to this animal that will soon leave my life.
Naidu, his cousin, and a rickshaw-driver friend (who I later discover is half-blind) are with the calf. The rickshaw driver wants fifteen dollars round-trip for dropping off the calf in Whitefield. We settle on ten. We push the calf inside, where he lies on the floor in between Naidu and me. His snout brushes against my calves.
Our first stop is a local office of the cow shelter. There is a process, Sarala has explained to me. First, they have filled out an application form. Then, they show the calf to the local office, where a man will make sure that the calf is indeed theirs, that they haven’t stolen him. Only after that can we take Alfie to the cow shelter and leave him, meaning, in my mind, abandon him.
“We need to show the Jain guy this calf and get an authorization form,” says Naidu. “Otherwise, they will question whether we stole the calf from somewhere.” It doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone steal a cow to donate it to a cow shelter? Is Naidu getting some small amount for bringing the calf? I decide not to ask. I am to accompany them to Amar Chand Champalal, a pawnbroker who is also the local officer of the cow shelter. Having me—an educated woman—with them will give them added credibility and ease the calf’s way into the shelter. Or that’s the plan.
We stop the rickshaw in front of the tiny shop and produce the calf. Amar, a wizened old man clad in a white kurta pajama (a long loose tunic on top with pajama-like pants) takes one look at the tiny reluctant animal and waves his assent. He will call the cow shelter and give them a heads-up that we are coming.
“They charge us murderous interest rates for Sarala’s wedding chain, the single piece of jewelry we pawn and reclaim,” Naidu says ruefully. “And then they go and give the money to places like a cow shelter. Why don’t they help us humans?”
“Whatever,” says the cousin. “At least they are doing some good work. Let’s go.”
There are two types of people in the world. Some are animal people and others are not. Both can exist within the same household. To people who aren’t into animals, the whole notion of struggling so much with a calf would seem ludicrous. To animal lovers, the fact that we are giving a newborn calf away is outrageous. To both sets of accusers, I say, “You weren’t there.”
19
The Cow Hotel
The shelter is an hour outside Bangalore proper. Our rickshaw bounces along over flyovers and underpasses. The calf lies at our feet serenely. Soon, we are entering the Bangalore Gorakshan Shala, which translates to “Bangalore Save the Cow Shelter.” It is 108 acres of prime land that would be worth millions of dollars if developed. Instead, it is overrun by bovines. In both the Jain and Hindu faiths, 108 is an auspicious number. I doubt that the number of acres bought way back in the 1930s was a coincidence.
There is an arch at the entrance, so it’s almost as if we are entering a religious institution. A couple of men sit on the side, napping in their chairs. No one stops or questions us as we walk in pushing a reluctant calf. Cows don’t like to be prodded and neither do calves. There is a reason that Taurus, the sign of the bull, is associated with stubbornness. Bovines like to walk at their own pace. Naidu pushes the calf and his cousin pulls it from the front. It takes the two of them to guide the calf into the sprawling space, which is divided into several areas, each with a few hundred cows.
In the front is a large, enclosed area, inside of which seem to be the healthiest animals: a mix of HF cows, native breeds, and bulls. They stand there eating the hay that is spread all over the floor and look up inquiringly as we walk past on our way to the calves’ enclave. There are sections for native breeds like the Gir and the Saahil, which come from the North; there is another enclosure, full of black buffaloes with curved horns. In the back are sick cows, with polio or foot-and-mouth disease. There is a gate beyond which, I am told, are the areas where dead cows are buried.
“Look over there! It’s a camel. Two camels. Actually four,” says the cousin.
On the roofs of the sheds are thousands of doves.
“It costs us thirty thousand dollars a month to run the go-shala,” says Kishenlalji Kothari, the secretary of the shelter. Kothari is an elderly man who, like the pawnbroker – local officer we met earlier, is clad in a white kurta pajama. White hair sticks out of his ears, which remind me of bovine ears. He reels off a long list of expenses. There are about one thousand cows in the shelter and some four hundred calves. Only about fifty to sixty of them are milking cows. The rest are discards, left by farmers who cannot keep them. Each calf is given a liter of milk a day, bought from milk trucks that stop by daily. Maize and wheat are purchased from local farmers. Even water is expensive. There are about forty-five people on staff, including a doctor, and several other vets on call from the local veterinary college. The shelter runs with contributions from its five hundred members.
“We treat these animals as family members,” says Kothari. “It is hard to convince nonvegetarians. They think we are just wasting money. But we don’t want to convince them.”
Is it because you are a Jain that you do this? I ask Kothari. He demurs. “Being Indians, we consider the cow a sacred animal. We solve their grievances, save them from butchers. In the whole world—not just India—do you know anyone who has not used a product from a cow?”
I think of my vegan friends who eschew all dairy products but nod politely.
The society wants to increase the number of animals to ten thousand, says Kothari. They dream of using fifty of their acres for the cow shelter and then building hospitals, orphanages, and old-age homes—for humans, not necessarily cows—in the remaining land. The goal is that their cow shelter becomes not just self-sufficient but also able to support other shelters all over India. They want to educate farmers to value animals.
“Everything I am is because of the blessing of the cow,” says Kothari. “If you think about it, the cow is the most evolved animal, after humans.”
“What about chimpanzees?” I ask.
“Chimpanzees don’t give milk to humans. They aren’t generous like cows.”
I’d like to refute him but don’t know enough about chimps to do
so. I make a mental note to read Jane Goodall.
Kothari challenges me to think of a goal that I want to attain.
“I’d like to be a stand-up comic,” I say.
He frowns. He was hoping for a more serious goal, I can tell. “Pray to the holy cow and if you attain your goal, if you get some peace of mind, support us a little,” he says.
Naidu and I are not peaceful at the calves’ enclosure. We are distressed. Naidu looks around, wondering where to leave our calf. He leads it to a vacant spot and quickly ties its rope to the pillar. A neighboring calf comes forward and smells the new entrant inquiringly. Cows, they say, have a keen sense of smell. They can smell things miles away. But not their own dung, perhaps. How else can they stand amid their excrement?
The tied calf stands there uncertainly. The other animals look fairly healthy. There is the odd calf that is lying on the ground, gasping for breath, clearly sick. Blood is seeping out of another calf’s rear. But for the most part, the calves are standing, sitting, napping, and bleating. They don’t look deprived or abused.
A huge truck comes in. Two men begin to unload hay. The calf is still standing. It doesn’t bleat reproachfully at us. What do we do? Are we doing the right thing? Naidu and I watch our calf anxiously for a few minutes. And then, decisively, we turn and walk away.
We do not look back.
The next morning, both Sarala and I are strained as we meet for milk. “We have left the calf,” I say, nay accuse. “Just as you wanted.”
“I know. That rickshaw driver fleeced you. He is half-blind and is collecting money for his eye operation,” says Sarala. “Did you tell the staff to take special care of our calf?”
The Milk Lady of Bangalore Page 18