PARASHAR KULKARNI
COW AND COMPANY
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
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Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
For Bhau and Aai
Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth. Our mother gives us milk for a couple of years and then expects us to serve her when we grow up. Mother cow expects from us nothing but grass and grain. Our mother often falls ill and expects service from us. Mother cow rarely falls ill. Here is an unbroken record of service which does not end with her death. Our mother, when she dies, means expenses of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive. We can make use of every part of her body—her flesh, her bones, her intestines, her horns and her skin. Well, I say this not to disparage the mother who gives us birth, but in order to show you the substantial reasons for my worshipping the cow.
M.K. Gandhi
(Harijan 8 [31]: 15 September 1940, p. 281)
1
Metro House, the headquarters of the British Chewing Gum Company, stood at the intersection of Colaba Causeway, the artery of the old town with its hundred or so commercial establishments, and a side street leading towards Apollo Bunder, the Bombay port that had become the centre of the cotton trade. Three-storey high and defended by one guard with a baton, what was lost in size was recovered in ambition—to introduce chewing gum to all the Crown’s colonies. Where to inaugurate this grand design from, if not the jewel in the crown—India? If setting up shop was a struggle, what lay ahead was war. All mouths were full . with betel leaves—paan—that stood guard against the changing tide of time. The empire of paan—the sun never truly set on it—was on all streets and in all homes. It was in alliance with a hundred odd partners: Afghani dates, Malabari cardamom, Kashmiri saffron, Ahmedabadi gold leaves . It presided over all events: births, rebirths, weddings, funerals. It was referenced in all texts: written by man, written by God. It left no lip unblemished. It was invincible: in public or private, by day or night, on land or water, by man or beast.
Every couple of hours, millions spat in support. The walls were red. The streets were red. The British Chewing Gum Company too was infiltrated. Two corridors were stained. Three of the twelve employees were daily paan-chewers. Nothing short of a revolution was in need.
Day by day, the Company had begun to know the who, why, what, where and how of paan-chewing. Their survey, work in progress, informed them that the Muslims added saffron, Hindus added cardamom. Men added tobacco, women added mint. Lower classes added lime, upper classes added gold. Bengalis liked theirs sweeter, Madrasis, smaller. Afghanis added opium. Soon, the Atlas of Paan-Chewers was drawn up with tables, maps and legends.
‘Will anyone eat paan once they discover our chewing gum? No spitting on the streets, no stains on the walls; the government should pay us for our services to the Crown,’ joked Thompson, the director of the British Chewing Gum Company. When he was twelve, he had made up his mind to move to a place that had nothing to do with pork or pigs. That took care of most of the colonies in Asia and Africa. He crossed out Arabia too where pork was taboo—for that, a recurring childhood nightmare of waking up as a pig was responsible. All this because he was bullied at school; they didn’t call him short or fat, just ‘porky’. Bombay brought a new set of problems. His nose grew redder as the temperatures soared, and that year was going to be very hot.
2
By the end of its first year the Company could count on fifteen employees to fulfil its glorious mission. The first convert was Dibu Banerjee, the accountant, a daily paan-chewer. Two days after signing the lease, Thompson was at the office. He was surprised to see a thin man standing alone in the room furthest from the lobby; long face, prominent temples, trimmed moustache and thick, black-rimmed spectacles.
‘Taking measurements, sir, to calculate depreciation,’ he had said in response to Thompson’s stare.
‘What’s in that packet?’
‘Tea leaves, sir. I love tea.’ He quickly re-wrapped the leaves and shoved the package into his white cotton bag. The sweet smell of marijuana hung in the room. Thompson did not tell Banerjee that for the past ten years he had been a valiant soldier in her Majesty’s Indian empire and had played his part in transforming it into the world’s largest producer of tea—he had been an officer in the Tea Board.
‘What do you do?’ Thompson asked.
‘I am an accountant, sir.’
‘Do you know double-entry?’
‘All double-entries are singly entered in my head.’
‘And English.’
‘Sir, I can talk English, walk English and laugh English.’
Although Thompson remembered Banerjee’s unique ways with the language, he could not remember appointing him. Perhaps Banerjee had appointed himself, after all he was the accountant. Thompson did not know that Banerjee was a daily paan-chewer. Six months later, when paan had become the ‘enemy’ and Banerjee was found to be a daily paan-chewer, Thompson issued the Company’s first commandment: ‘Thou shalt not eat paan.’ No penalties were proposed. No arrests were made.
Pesi Pestonjee, the manager, was secured a week later. A friend at the Municipal Corporation had recommended him. At the first meeting, Pestonjee appeared obsessive about cleanliness, his own and of the space surrounding him. With his white handkerchief, he wiped the four square inches of the table where his right palm rested. Every two minutes he checked the cuffs of his shirt, which like his trousers, were white. He retained no facial hair. He had an uncanny resemblance to a squirrel, perhaps it was his teeth. He appeared to economize on movement. If his mouth moved, nothing else did. He has long teeth and is quite English in colour, even in taste, Thompson thought.
The pastor at the Presbyterian Church requested Thompson to hire Nelson Natwarlal, the office assistant.
‘Can you do me a favour, Archie, if it isn’t too much trouble? I need you to employ someone—a young boy.’
‘Is he your relative, Pastor?’
‘No, Archie, a native. Nelson.’
‘Nelson?’
‘I asked the young man to choose a name. He said Nelson Napoleon. I told him the world wasn’t ready for so much in one man. So, Nelson it was.’
‘Better Nelson in the land of the Queen. The papists have enough followers already.’
‘It’s not unusual among the converts. The other day a priest was telling me that Travancore is full of Nelsons and Napoleons.’
‘Haven’t Christians lived there for long?’
‘Since 52 AD. Saint Thomas was there, allegedly.’
‘Doubting Thomas? What did he doubt, Pastor?’
‘The resurrection of Jesus. He felt the wound himself.’
‘And was he convinced?’
‘Still a debate. We believe Thomas believed due to faith alone. He did not literally touch Jesus’s wound. The Catholics believe he did and his experienc
e strengthened his faith.’
‘Risky path that is. Does he have any skills?’
‘He can understand English. He speaks Marathi, his native language.’
‘What good is that?’
‘I baptized him. Didn’t you say that they should give up their religion? He has, and now nobody wants to employ him.’
‘I could use an errand boy.’
‘That will do . for now.’
When Pestonjee first met Nelson, he felt he had seen that face before, on an older person. Nelson was sixteen. At sixteen he oiled his hair every day, he had a pencil moustache, his eyebrows had merged in the middle, and he wore a khadi side cap that would later become popular as the Gandhi cap. An English visitor had remarked that Nelson looked like a thin-moustached kangaroo.
‘You look like Natwarlal,’ Pestonjee said. Nelson became Nelson Natwarlal in the official records of the company.
Joy, Thompson’s secretary, had worked with him at the Tea Board. She spoke to no one, looked at no one and no one knew anything about her. Not even Banerjee, who was, after all, the accountant. She wore white gloves. Banerjee suspected that she was responsible for his transfer from the centre of the office, a position of privilege from where he could see everyone, to a corner where he faced the window.
Young, the man in charge of the paan survey, was an American, although not the missionary-type that the English were accustomed to. This year would bring a new crop, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thompson’s first encounter with Young was also at the Tea Board. At the time, Young was selling a new methodology: survey, ‘a scientific management tool for businesses to produce more, sell more, and profit more, with less’. At the Tea Board, Thompson, along with the rest of the hierarchy, had found Young too eager, his hands always stretched forward, his face always friendly. When Thompson was ousted from his government job (some said there was too much of Scotland in him, some said he had used his fist where a word would have sufficed), he was also divested of his governmentality. Now he appreciated eager men. He invited Young to carry out a survey for the Company.
As the weeks went by, Pestonjee took charge of the day to day activities and Thompson migrated to the realm of ideas. Armed with new convictions, Thompson decided to pursue the kids. They can chew gum, they can blow bubbles, they can take off, poof! just like that, from the grey cliffs, from the tree tops, from their second-storey windows. Thousands of kids in the air, a garden of floating children.
3
‘Where’s the cow?’ asked Pestonjee.
‘The cow?’ the junior officer responded.
‘Yes, what else?’
‘Oh, the cow.’
‘I told you, two days ago.’
‘Yes. I didn’t forget. By this eve—’
‘No, not evening. By noon, in the lobby.’
‘I thought he was joking,’ muttered the officer, returning to his desk.
‘A cow?’ Banerjee responded.
‘Yes.’
‘A real cow?’
The officer looked around and spotted Natwarlal sitting on his rickety stool, leisurely picking his nose.
‘Natwarlal!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Where can we can find a cow?’
‘A cow?’
‘A cow, a real cow, a cow with two horns and four legs.’
‘Sir. My uncle in the village—’
‘Now.’
‘I can ask at the dairy. By tomorrow morning—’
‘I want a cow now.’
‘Sir, I have to file this paper, and then there is the mail to collect, and then deal with my brother. They have raised his rent again. Demolitions have begun. He is being evi—’
‘Come.’ Turning towards Banerjee, the officer said, ‘Banerjee, will you come with me?’ Banerjee rose involuntarily.
Halfway down the stairs, Natwarlal saw Battisi, the cleaner, walking up counting who knows what with his fingers. Natwarlal grabbed his hand.
‘Do you know Sinhasan Battisi?’ Battisi would say when asked about his unusual name—Sinhasan Battisi were the thirty-two parables of King Vikramaditya. But the moment the cleaner opened his mouth, it became evident that he was called ‘Battisi’ not because of some king from the past but because of his own thirty-two teeth. Each one of them could hold a story. When he smiled the room lit up.
‘Daant hain ya motiyon ka haar! (Are these teeth or a garland of pearls!)’
When he was a boy, Battisi would smile hesitantly, but now he had come to terms with his dental endowment. There were days when he did not smile but that was because he was cautioned more than once.
‘Dhak kar rakha karo, nahin to nazar lag jayegi (Keep them under wraps, or someone will cast an evil eye).’
Today, he didn’t seem to care about his new found direction and now there were four of them; the junior officer, Banerjee, Natwarlal and Battisi, who had stepped out of Metro House looking for a cow.
The men turned left on Causeway without waiting to coordinate. They knew where the cows were at that hour. The blazing noon sun overwhelmed them all.
‘I always see two cows here, every day. Is today a holiday?’ the officer asked.
‘They must be at the fair,’ Natwarlal responded.
‘Did you go?’
‘No, I was there last year.’
‘Let’s look by the station.’
‘I have to balance the ledgers today. Mr Pestonjee said it was urgent,’ said Banerjee, his legs already moving in the opposite direction.
‘This cow business is also for Pestonjee and it’s due by noon,’ said the officer.
‘Yes, hmm . No, no. See you at lunch.’
The remaining three men continued their journey. Natwarlal glanced back periodically, then looked up at the sky and then the officer. Twice, when the officer had looked his way for no reason other than the variation in their pace, Natwarlal would vigorously wipe sweat off his brow. Unlike Banerjee, he was in no position to excuse himself. Half an hour later, despite her many manifestations—cow milk, cow curd, cow butter, cow leather, cow dung, cow paintings, cow murals, cow sculptures, a cow temple, shops named after cows, conversations about cows, a cow cart without a cow, and a man standing on one leg, hands together, chanting ‘cow, cow, cow,’ repeatedly—the animal in its whole earthly form was not to be seen. A dozen or so people had assembled around the man standing on one leg. Inquiries indicated he had been in that position for eight months, nine days and five hours.
‘Ha! Who cares!’ scoffed the officer. ‘There are many such men standing on every street in Varanasi. Some on their heads. My uncle at the temple told us about an old man who has been walking on his hands since he was six.’
~
In matters of religion, the city of Varanasi attracted comparisons in the superlative. If there was a priest somewhere who had married a woman to a tree, in Varanasi, there were priests who specialized in tree horoscopes. If there was a priest somewhere who could perform a six-hour wedding recital by rote, in Varanasi there were priests who could undo weddings by conducting the same recital in reverse, word by word. If there was a priest somewhere who could conduct an exorcism, in Varanasi there were priests who could transform a human, usually a woman, into a ghost, or clouds, or free-floating atoms, or whatever else, depending on the scientific disposition of the client, along with her jewellery. One entrepreneurial priest transformed a devout cow profiteer’s gold necklace into sound waves that travelled to heaven and retransformed to gold on the neck of his client’s deceased grandmother. The profiteer had sold ten healthy cows to the local Muslim butcher much to the dismay of his bedridden grandmother. She passed away the next day.
‘A single cow will not appease her,’ the priest responded to the cow profiteer’s offer to sacrifice a cow. ‘She calls out for her gold necklace.’ The necklace was a family heirloom. The cow profiteer sought a second opinion.
‘Who ever heard of an old grandmother call out from heaven?’ advised the reformed Hindu preacher.
‘Ignore him. What can you expect from a Brahmo? He won’t hear even if God calls,’ the priest retaliated.
The matter was finally taken to a senior priest in Varanasi, who, with substantial effort—two full days and three assistants—accomplished the feat. The gold necklace was transmigrated. The profiteer wondered, in private, whether heaven was the right address for his grandmother. The old woman had given up many norms of propriety and sobriety in her last few years. Her language was interspersed with invented and classical abuses. She had accumulated a substantial debt with the local bootlegger. It began with tobacco. The doctor recommended that she rub it on her inflamed gums. It worked too well. The pain subsided in a week. As a preventive measure, she continued her treatment. A few weeks later, she had doubled the dosage and added some country liquor. This cocktail persisted with her until her last day. In the afternoons she would shout at the young boys playing in the compound, ‘Madarchodoon, apni lund apni gand mein dalo . ya meri le lo (You motherfuckers, shove your dicks in your arse . or take mine).’ She was surely going to hell, he thought. He did not take it up with the priest. The journey to hell would have cost a lot more. Hell was in the deep recesses of the earth. It would require substantial digging. Money was not the only issue. When the Mughal Emperor Akbar invited Birbal, then Mahesh Das, to be a part of his royal court, a noble courtier objected.
‘Test him,’ Akbar said.
‘If you are truly intelligent, read my mind,’ the courtier challenged Birbal.
‘You pray for the long life of the King,’ Birbal responded.
So the cow profiteer’s grandmother went to heaven.
~
‘Does this man have children?’ the officer inquired.
‘He is not that important,’ a man interrupted who seemed to have taken it upon himself to be the spokesman for the event and was addressing all kinds of inquiries, ‘it’s the crow.’
They looked up. A crow, like any other, sat on a branch of a gulmohar tree. In contrast, the tree seemed surreal—caked over in red, yellow and black. Beyond seven feet, its trunk gradually regained its routine earthiness. A less hurried glance revealed that the tree was covered with rice cakes, turmeric, ash and vermillion. The crow was comfortably perched on a higher branch beyond the reach of the people below. The devotees had developed a new theology—the doctrine of contact—the tree should be considered sacred because the crow was perched on it.
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