Jats fearlessly exposing themselves to injury during agitation
At last, the Jats of Haryana have triumphed in their heroic week-long struggle to be recognized as ‘Backward’. With the Government of India and the Government of Haryana declaring the Jats to be a Backward Community, the Jats have called off their agitation.
We, the people of India, are overjoyed. We congratulate the Jats for joining the swelling ranks of the Backward!
But the Jats have also suffered terribly during their heroic, Nationalistic struggle.
Thousands of young Jat men suffered cuts, bruises and sprains while lifting and dragging heavy stones, concrete blocks and tree-trunks to block all the highways and railway lines in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi, and while assaulting non-Jat passers-by with rocks, sticks and affiliated blunt weapons.
Many Jat men experienced severe dehydration and exhaustion as they wielded sledge-hammers, crowbars and other heavy tools to destroy the pumps, sluice gates, and affiliated equipment and concrete works used to supply water to New Delhi’s 15 million people via the Munak Canal.
Countless Jat men—and even a few Jat women (whose names have been noted by the Jat Khap Panchayats for future reference and action) — suffered lacerations, muscle pulls and back pains as they broke shop windows and raided malls and supermarkets to loot mobile phones, refrigerators, cars, branded footwear and apparel, perfumes, lingerie, and other essential commodities.
Of particular concern is the fact that at least fifty Jat men are still under treatment for severe ailments such as neck and lower back injuries (from wielding heavy axes and swords), ‘shooter’s finger syndrome’ (from pulling stiff triggers of pistols and country guns) and burns (from setting fire to railway stations, buses, automobiles, shops, houses, truck tyres, and a few non-Jat passers-by).
Alas, the sufferings and sacrifices of the Jats in their heroic, Nationalistic struggle have gone unnoticed by our callous mainstream media, which has only been obsessed with the Anti-National protests of JNU students.
However, We, the Wee People of India, deeply sympathize with the poor Jats for the terrible hardships they faced and the sacrifices they made during their struggle. We demand that they be compensated for their injuries and losses.
In ringing tones, We, the Wee People of India, assure the Jats that India shall forever recognize and celebrate their Nationalistic struggle for what is, after all, the fundamental right of every true-blood, caste-ironed Indian – to be recognized by the world as Socially, Economically and Culturally Backward.
What a fine ideal the Jats have set of True Selfless Nationalism; an ideal for the young Anti-National JNU-wallahs to emulate!
Inspired by the Jats, let all Indians now unite, Forwards and Backwards, in our relentless hind-ward journey towards Backward Development.
Let our government demand a Reserved Seat for India in the UN Security Council under the Backward Quota.
Remember all the jokes about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s frequent overseas trips?
How I laughed!
But now, while researching the overseas junkets of our beloved MPs, I’ve discovered a curious thing. And I’m laughing even harder.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has travelled abroad much more than Prime Minister Modi.
Consider the data.
In the calendar year 2015 and up to date (i.e. January 13, 2016), Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent a total of 55 days on overseas visits.
In the calendar year 2015 and up to date (i.e. January 13, 2016), Rahul Gandhi spent a total of 86 days on overseas visits! That’s more than 1½ times the number of days spent by Modi abroad.
Now, you and I and everyone’s uncle and bhatija and periappa can argue till Laloo’s cows come home about what Modi’s visits have or haven’t yielded India. But this much is certain: Modi’s 55 days on overseas visits and their purposes are all in public domain, not just on the PMO’s site but even on Wikipedia. And since on 54½ out of those 55 days Modi was on official duty (state visits, attending UN/ASEAN conferences and so forth) and I knew exactly where the man was and what he was doing there, I as a tax-payer don’t mind part-subsidizing Modi’s travel expenses – except for Modi’s half-day private visit, on 25th December, when on the way back from Kabul he stopped by in Lahore to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday.
But friend Rahul Gandhi is a different matter.
All of Rahul Gandhi’s 86 days abroad were ‘private visits’, whatever that means. I never knew where Rahul was; I did not know why he had gone where he had gone; I did not know what he was doing there (if at all he did anything). And I still don’t know any of these things. That’s because Rahul’s movements have always been as hidden as the signs of his intellectual abilities, as dense as the collective wisdom of the Congress High Command. There are great tracts of time where no-one (barring, perhaps, his mother Sonia) seems to have known whether the man was in India, or abroad, or in some extra-galactic realm of self-discovery. Not even Rahul himself.
“It’s none of your business where Rahuljee is or was,” was/is the standard testy response of the First Family’s minders when asked about the whereabouts of the Great Leader.
Indeed, I grant Rahul Gandhi, as a fellow-citizen, the freedom and the right to go where he pleases to go and do what he pleases to do – as indeed I and my 1300 million fellow-Indians reserve and joyfully exercise these rights.
But Rahul is a Member of Parliament, while I am not. As an MP, Rahul is a Representative of the People of India; not just of the Congress party. Just as Narendra Modi, as MP, is Representative of the People of India and not just of the BJP.
They are answerable to us.
And therefore, I strongly object to Rahul’s disappearing from his duties to the People of India – that too for weeks or even months at a time – without notice on ‘private visits’ about which I/we know nothing.
The Congress might protest that Rahul paid for his own tickets and for whatever else he might have done during these holidays. Even granting that Rahul did so, what about the costs for his SPG cover, their tickets, their stays and so forth? As a tax-payer, I strongly object to being asked to subsidize totally unproductive ‘private visits’/holidays by my MP Rahul Gandhi.
“What about Modi!” the Congress spokespersons might shriek. “He didn’t tell anybody about his private visit to Lahore! Why don’t you object to Modi’s private visit to Nawaz, hey?”
It is a valid point.
So here’s a suggestion: when Parliament reconvenes, the House may order recovery of all expenses on private visits made by Narendra Modi (½ day) as well as Rahul Gandhi (86 days) from their respective salaries as MPs. The recovered sum may be directly and speedily credited toward a worthy cause – like providing better software for the Income Tax Department, to enable faster processing of IT Refunds due to the millions of suckers like me.
“Make a hook out of your left hand and reach out and grab your right shin. Reach up with your right hand towards the ceiling. Keep your left knee pressed firmly to the ground. Breathe…look towards your right hand …make sure the muscles in your neck and left shoulder are relaxed...”
Zubin’s voice is soft, calm; it seems to come from very far away as I follow the instructions. I stare at the edge of my stretched right wrist, hearing the faint roar of my own blood pumping through my veins as I strive to breathe normally. It’s easier now to remember to breathe; much easier than even a month ago, when I would instinctively hold my breath each time I got into any new position. I feel a dull pain in the left side of the neck. It intensifies: I loosen the grip on my shin, the pain disappears and at once my left shoulder relaxes; I didn’t even know it was tense!
I return to contemplating my right wrist and the ceiling above. Faintly, above the soft thunder of my blood, I hear Zubin murmuring: “It’s not about strength, it’s about becoming aware of yourself, about balance, harmony…”
I hear the words without really absorbing their import; I let the mind drift through an incredibly diverse cerebral landscape…
I need to finish that %%^&*@! article.
I’m hungry, must go with the gang to Café Red…akoori on toast, yea! And that tall green gingery drink, whatever it’s called…
Green…must remember to call the gardener, fix the terrace plants…
Oh hell, forgot to go and get some bigger flower pots…
Do that on Monday, no, Tuesday…
I’ve got to call Bala.
The article…
“Now, use your left elbow to keep your right knee pressed firmly towards the floor, and reach out with your right hand and see if you can grab the toes of your left foot…”
Hazily, I become aware that my limbs are arranged in an extraordinary pattern. I can feel a foot under my left hip; my left hand has, impossibly, coiled round my back and appears to be resting on my right thigh. But where is my right hand? Ah…that must be it, peeping out from beneath my left knee. I can see the toes of another foot beneath what must be my bent right knee; I wiggle the toes…and to my astonishment I feel the toes on the foot beneath my right hip wiggle.
Is this a glimpse of true detachment? Nah! It’s just an inability to follow simple instructions. As Zubin comes by and helps unknot and rearrange me into the required position by a series of deft twists, tugs, pulls and pushes, I slide off the banks of consciousness into the stream of restless mundane thoughts once again…
Wonder where to get the fibre-glass roof for the terrace…
Hah! Forget it! Crazy idea. There’s no money, unless by some miracle my income-tax refund materializes.
Damn that article…
Besides, there’s the whitewash to do, and also fixing the broken windows…
Perish the thought. Maybe I’ll sell the damned windows…Hah!
There’s a jam on Friday. Must practice that Uriah Heep number…
My shoulder hurts…
Pay the electricity bill.
Jam means whole afternoon gone, so what about the article? I need to finish that %%%&&^*$# article! Must do it tonight, forget Café Red…
Or else maybe I’ll work late, yeah, work till 3 a.m…
Akoori on toast…
My shoulder hurts!
I realize I’m holding my breath again. I breathe deeply, easily; feel the shoulder pain vanish, feel energy surging through the body. It’s an extraordinary feeling, a kind of electric tingle that pulsates with every breath…it’s a feeling I knew in childhood but somehow lost over the decades…a feeling of being here and now, of – well, Being. Yea, of simply Being…
I allow myself to drift away in the embrace of the feeling; a feeling that’s actually a kind of knowing. The knowledge that I AM, in this body yet able to contemplate it, in this mind yet aware that I have this mind and can channel it. I am here, now! I’ve always been here, now, amidst those whom I love and who love me…in this room, this world, beyond, infinitely. It is an incredibly exhilarating feeling, like it happens sometimes with déjà vu, knowing what’s going to happen, sensing the awesome truth that all that’s ever been and all that will ever be already IS…
I am that I am…
I am That I am
I am That I am
Tat tvam asi
Now slide yourself forward till you are in the child’s position. Relax, let go of everything, allow every muscle in your body to loosen up...
Slowly, I comprehend the words. Lazily, I float through the hazy, endless, weightless waters of satori back towards the banks of reality. I wonder briefly how much time’s elapsed, but let the thought drift away as the comfort of the child’s pose takes hold of my senses. My breathing is rapid but not ragged; the heartbeat is like a pounding bass drum in my ears…slowing down, softening…and presently, I return from the realms of infinite calm to the yoga room.
Question 1: Which of the following dietary practices are the most secular?
A. Hindu eats beef
B.Muslim eats pork
C. Hindu does not eat pork
D. Muslim does not eat beef
E. Both Hindus and Muslims turn vegetarian
Seriously, this is the kind of question that youngsters are likely to face in competitive exams in the next decade, going by the exquisitely refined crap that passes for intellectual discourse and political debate among academia and in mainstream media today.
Here is a fine example of the stellar academic thinking and intellectual activism – on public display during the past few months – that will inexorably lead to the posing of serious questions like the above. In recent months, certain sections of students in the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi have organized well-publicized ‘beef and pork eating parties’ for students; the idea is that Hindus who join in the revelry can prove their ‘secular credentials’ by eating beef, and Muslims who join in the revelry can prove their ‘secular credentials’ by eating pork.
But when you think about it, all that a Hindu or a Muslim could possibly ‘prove’ by eating beef and pork respectively in the party, is that she/he is hungry. Where in the name of Allah, Krishna, Jesus and other secular deities does ‘secularism’ come into what you shovel into your stomach?
What if a Hindu eats beef (or a Muslim eats pork) at such a party, and then proceeds to puke like mad because the meat is undercooked or overcooked or simply tasteless? Does that make the hapless puker ‘communal’?
And what about a Muslim or Hindu who is invited to such a party but refuses to go? Does his or her refusal to go and hog pigs and cows cast a shadow of doubt over his/her ‘secular credentials’, whatever in @@#$%%&^% that phrase means?
Let me hasten to add, loud and clear with my mouth filled with pork and beef: I believe there’s absolutely nothing wrong in eating beef and pork. Or armadillo balls, or monkey gonads, or idlis for that matter.
What one eats is purely a matter of personal taste. I eat anything that’s served with love and affection.
I state, without either embarrassment or pride, that I love South Indian vegetarian food. And also North Indian vegetarian food. But I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed, and continue to eat, all kinds of meat: of cows, pigs, sheep, lamb, goat, deer, yak, wild boar and so forth. I also love to eat fish from lakes, rivers and seas. Oh, and also crustaceans. In addition, I’ve eaten and still eat a variety of bird: chicken and duck and pigeon, of course, and also quail, partridge, and numerous other species whose names I know not that were felled, cooked and eaten during hikes with friends in the forests of Assam and Meghalaya. Lest I forget, I’ve also eaten, with immense relish, an extraordinary variety of little creatures that are garden-grown – well, basically creatures that live on things that are garden-grown; like little caterpillars (in their cocoons) that grow on pea plants, fried bee larva and so forth.
But you know what? My all-time favourite dishes since childhood are dahi-chawal, kootu, Assamese fish curry and Kerala-style fried prawns.
And I detest paneer in all its avatars. But I don’t consider paneer-lovers communal or secular. I don’t scream: “Ban paneer!”
The point I’m making is: there’s nothing ‘secular’ or ‘communal’ about food. I consider myself a man of faith; my faith is my own business. And what I eat has sweet@@##%%^&-all to do with my faith – or yours, for that matter.
Please go ahead and eat what you wish to eat. Please do let me eat what I like to eat.
All food we eat serves but one purpose: to give us the energy to live. To mix up ‘God’ with food is not only idiotic; it is sacrilege. Because leftovers from the food you eat go down the alimentary canal, to eventually…well…let’s drop the matter.
As Conan Doyle might have put it: “Alimentary, my dear JNU beef-and-pork partiers”.
That Saturday, I left the bank as usual at about two o’clock and went straight down to Safina Restaurant, on the ground floor, where I wolfed down a half-plate of rice and chicken curry. Safina Restaurant was my regular eating place in Chemmad, primarily because it was the only restaurant in the whole town. Not that I ever had cause to complain about its fare. The Safina menu was limited but nutritious. Usually, I breakfasted on eggs and Malabar paratha; lunched on chicken biryani; and dined on chicken curry and rice. For variety, I sometimes lunched on chicken curry and rice and dined on chicken biryani. When in extravagant mood, I sometimes had an omelet with my chicken curry and rice. Safina’s owner and head chef, Haji Mohamed, was a friendly and solicitous host, ever ready to sit with me and chat while I ate, and quite tolerant of my occasional forays into his kitchen to modify or experiment with some dish. Thanks to Haji Mohamed’s fare, I gained three kilos during my five-month stay in Chemmad.
I was a Probationary Officer assigned to State Bank of Travancore‘s branch in this little town, located in Malappuram district of Kerala. It took a while for me to adjust to Chemmad. Without doubt, it also took a while for Chemmad to adjust to me; for having lived all my life in Meghalaya and Assam, I knew little of the cultures of southern India. I didn’t know a word of Malayalam; even my Tamil was awful. Naturally, then, I dropped bricks of varying size and weight throughout my stay in Chemmad, much to the amusement of the townsfolk…
But all that is for another story, for another time. This is about a bus journey I took that Saturday in early 1980; a routine weekend bus journey from Chemmad to Calicut (now Kozhikode) to buy things and do things that I couldn’t buy or do in Chemmad—like pick up newspapers and magazines, medicines, toiletries, biscuits and namkeen, a carton of cigarettes. Make ‘phone calls to my parents in Guwahati, perhaps to a friend or two in Delhi and Bangalore (Chemmad didn’t have a public telephone booth). Drink a cup or three of good filter coffee; eat something other than chicken biriyani and chicken curry. As always, I had with me a large bag filled with linen to give for wash at a laundry on Beach Road in Calicut, and in which to bring back the earlier week’s consignment: Chemmad didn’t have a dhobi, and its perennial water shortage made it difficult to wash anything larger than a shirt. I looked forward to strolling along the Calicut beach, having a coffee somewhere, wandering aimlessly through the centuries-old lanes near the old harbor, the air redolent with spices and flowers and dried fish, the narrow pavements lit by oblong orange-yellow glows from a thousand shops selling a thousand different things as they probably had for a thousand years. I thought of the huge, smoke-filled tavern near the mofussil bus stand where, as always, I’d quaff a quarter bottle of rum, dine on rice and fish, and then board a bus back to Chemmad…
Presently, a Calicut-bound bus came rattling down the highway—like most of its kin, a private bus operated by ‘Vengara Roadways’ . I boarded the bus and found a seat. Seated next to me, at the window, was an ageing maulvi with a deeply lined face and long, lustrous white beard. He had his eyes closed; his lips moved slightly in silent prayer. Most of the score or so other passengers were easily identifiable as Mohammedan by their kufi caps; hardly surprising, considering that Malappuram district’s population was predominantly Muslim.
We rattled along a two-lane winding road through low, thickly forested hills and valleys carpeted with green paddy and yellow mustard. To the west, beyond and above the fronds of coconut palm and betel, banana and jackfruit, the glittering Arabian Sea stretched to an indistinct horizon, blue-green water merging and dissolving in blurry blue sky. It was hot; the sun beat down from a shimmering cloudless sky; the maulvi dozed off, his wizened cheek resting against the edge of the window.
Calicut was only 30 kilometres away from Chemmad, but the journey usually took an hour or more. The driver slowed down the bus upon sighting any pedestrian or human habitation on or near the road, whereupon his assistant—a wiry, curly-haired youth wearing a red T-shirt and a lungi of incredibly bright pattern and hue—leaned out at a dangerous angle from the front door, banged the sheet-metal side of the bus and entreated prospective travellers, visible or otherwise, to board the bus with musical chanting of the names of all the villages and towns that lay en route. “Aiieeee, Kozikode! Kozhikode!Tenhipalam! Feroke! Beypore! Kozhikode! Aiieeee, Kozikode!” The driver also obligingly stopped the bus wherever and whenever a passenger wanted— to disembark, to exchange pleasantries with passers-by, to buy fruit, or simply to relieve himself.
And so, in this wonderfully relaxed and friendly way, we trundled along. We stopped for over fifteen minutes at Tenhipalam, where the Calicut University is located. Many passengers disembarked here; a few boarded, and we moved on. As we drew nearer to Calicut, the traffic on the road perceptibly increased, as did the noise levels. We passed the industrial town of Feroke, crossed the long bridge across the Chaliyar river, and turned left to drive past the ancient port of Beypore with its thousand-year-old boat-building yards.
It must have been around 4 p.m when, with Calicut barely 10 kilometres away, the bus suddenly lurched to a halt. The maulvi started and opened his eyes. I peered down the aisle and saw, through the windshield, a row of buses, trucks and other vehicles standing on the road ahead of us, extending as far as the eye could see. The driver muttered imprecations and switched off the engine; the assistant hopped off the bus and walked off to converse with a small group of people standing next to the bus in front of us. He returned and exchanged a few quiet words with the driver, who stiffened visibly and then turned and announced something in Malayalam to all of us. At once, all conversation ceased, and an electric tension filled the atmosphere inside the bus.
I didn’t understand much Malayalam then, but could gather the gist of what the driver had said.
There was trouble ahead. And the trouble was drawing near, in the shape of an RSS procession.
It seemed that the RSS—Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, self-proclaimed defenders of the Hindu community—were angry because earlier that day, an RSS activist had been hacked to death in a village up north, not far from Calicut. The assailants were Muslim men. The assailants had been arrested—but the RSS was still in a rage over the incident. And they were marching down this highway, in a ‘show of strength’.
I sat, silent as the other passengers were. Next to me, the maulvi had again closed his eyes in silent prayer. The afternoon sun poured in through the windows on the left. One by one, on both sides of the road, shopkeepers were pulling down their shutters. Only a few pedestrians hurried past on the pavement, heads down, urgency in their steps. The wail of a distant police siren wafted through the oppressive quiet, grew fainter and then vanished.
After an interminable moment, the driver turned on his radio and fiddled with the knobs till he found a local Malayalam news channel. A woman newsreader mentioned communal tension in the Calicut area sparked off by the killing of an RSS man near Tellicherry, cheerfully adding that according to police, the situation was “tense but under control.” The news summary ended; abruptly Malayalam pop music blared forth from the speakers, shockingly loud. A voice from across the aisle roared something, and the startled driver switched off the radio.
Silence returned. The pavements were now deserted. A few people leaned on the balconies overlooking the road. Black ravens sat on the telephone wires high above the road, still and watchful. And then I heard the drums, throbbing in the silent, still, humid air; soft at first, but growing louder and louder.
Ta-da-da-DUM. Dum. DUM-dum-dum.
Ta-da-da-Dum. Dum. DUM-dum-dum.
Over and over again, on and on, the pulsating beat grew louder and louder till it was the only sound that filled the ears, the only thing that stirred the air, the only energy that filled the world. Automatically, the Timekeeper in my mind took up the beat: Ta-da-da-DUM. Dum. DUM-dum-dum. Ta-da-da-DUM. Dum. DUM-dum-dum. It was a driving, maddening beat, a funeral beat; a beat I had learned to play from King Crimson’s ‘Devil’s Triangle’; a beat that resonated with grief and desolation, with Fear and her demented brother, Rage.
Abruptly, the ravens took flight with a rush of wings and raucous cries. And presently, around the edge of the bus in front, the marchers appeared and streamed past along the road. Almost all of them were young men, some barely in their teens: black caps on their closely cropped heads, mostly clean-shaven, clad in starched white shirts and outsized khaki shorts over white socks and black shoes. At regular intervals along the fluid column were rows of drummers. They were clad like the others, but had drums slung about their waists: huge bass drums, beaten with ferocity to set the pace of the marchers, and smaller kettle drums on which slender sticks played the off-beat funeral march. Ta-da-da-DUM. Dum. DUM-dum-dum. Ta-da-da-DUM. Dum. DUM-dum-dum.
The marching column flowed past, seemingly endless; the marchers were silent, their muscles rippled as they swung their arms to the beat of the drums. Their faces were expressionless but their eyes flickered now and again towards the bus windows as they moved past us. I caught the glance of one marcher as he moved past: his eyes bored into mine, hard as stone, blazing like a lizard’s eyes blaze in the instant before its tongue lashes out to capture and gobble up a frail-winged insect. With an effort I looked away and stared at the back of the seat in front, frozen in body and mind.
The marcher’s eyes were filled with hate.
Hatred, for me. For us.
For the marchers, we were all Muslims— I, we, all of us in the bus. We were identified as Muslims, if not by caps and beards, then by the name painted on the side of the bus. We were Muslims…like the men who had murdered their RSS colleague in Tellicherry. We were Muslims, and therefore regarded as culpable in that murder.
Frantically, my mind wrestled with the sheer absurdity of the logic…even as icy fear grew like a wave and swamped the carefully constructed scaffolding of rational thought, self-control. Conscious of the moving column just outside the window, at the corner of vision, I stared blankly at the seat in front, fists clenched in my lap, neck stiff, legs feeling like water. Some of the passengers across the aisle had half-risen from their seats and were peering out the windows on our side, eyes wide, eager to catch a glimpse of the marchers yet anxious not to be seen. The tension and fear in the bus was now palpable, a smothering blanket.
Sheeeenk.
The sharp sound cut through the silent, fevered air like a knife. It was the sound of metal sliding on metal; it had come from across the aisle. I turned and saw a young man half-risen from his aisle seat, about three rows ahead. His eyes were on the marchers. His left hand gripped the top of the seat in front; in his right hand was a straight-bladed sword, about two feet long. Where he had pulled the sword from, I had no idea. To his left, at the window on the far side, crouched another young man; even as I stared at them both young men turned and looked at me. And their eyes were as hard, as blazing and pitiless, as reptilian as the eyes of that RSS marcher outside.
I tore my gaze away and looked out the window on my right, and then at the seat in front.
They are Muslims, a voice in my mind shrieked. They know I am not a Muslim. They see me as a Hindu; as one with the RSS marchers out there, whom they hate. To them, I am a Hindu…and therefore, equally to be hated.
Reason grappled with panic as I stared at the seat in front of me. Incongruously, I felt laughter well up in my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed, fought for breath as I felt myself caught, squeezed between two walls of hatred; walls that were closing in on me, closing in…
“Chinta mat karo…”
The heavily accented Hindi words were soft, almost a whisper. The maulvi’s eyes were calm.
“Chinta mat karo,” he murmured again. “Hum sab ek hain. Hum sab Khuda ke saamne ek hain.”
Do not be afraid. We are all One. We are all One before the One.
Like mist before blazing sunshine, my fear vanished. I drew a deep breath and looked out the window, where the last of the marchers were striding past. I looked across the aisle; the young men were seated now, chuckling over something. As the driver started the bus and turned on the music, I looked up at the maulvi. He nodded and smiled, and then closed his eyes, lips moving in silent prayer.
Ah! Recycling is such a joy, for the environmentally aware citizen as well as the struggling writer. Buoyed by this ignoble sentiment and by the nationwide brouhaha over divine bovinity (bovine divinity?) and whether it is right to hog beef, I dust off and present an ancient piece carried by The Times of India on 15 April 1999 under the title ‘Cow’s laughter’.
“What do you feel about cow slaughter?” asked the chairman of the interview board.
“Well,” I began confidently, “the issue’s unfortunately been clouded by religious sentiment…”
“Indeed, we know cows have religious feelings,” interrupted the chairman, “but what do you feel about the issue?”
Mercifully, the interview was terminated soon thereafter. Yet the true significance of the chairman’s remarks struck me – literally and rather forcefully – only many years later. I was in an auto-rickshaw, and my driver, like so many of his tribe in the Great City, was knowledgeable and voluble. Having discoursed at length on rising prices, falling morals and the urgent need for a Truck Driver Eradication Programme, he turned to the subject of cows.
“Ah! What a creature!” he breathed reverentially, swerving us towards a passing dog and missing narrowly. “She gives us milk, from which we make butter, cheese, curds, ghee…her strength pulls the cart and the plough, her very dung fertilises the soil…”
“And her meat is rich and nutritious!” I cried, caught up in his enthusiasm. “Her hide makes footwear, and her…” but I stopped short at his cry of horror. Indeed, so agitated was he at my remarks that he accelerated and braked at the same time, and our chariot executed a series of skips and jumps before shuddering to a halt. He turned to me.
“Sacrilege!” he whispered hoarsely. “To speak of eating cow’s flesh. But then you, sir, are undoubtedly a product of inadequate spiritual education, and therefore ignorant of the divine attributes of the cow. Let me tell you…”
At that moment, disaster struck. A dappled cow had been grazing contentedly on the grassy divider nearby. A passing truck sounded its horn; the cow jumped out of her skin; and the next instant she was charging straight towards us, mooing plaintively. I yelled in alarm; the driver twisted around, but too late. The cow lowered her horns instinctively before hitting the windshield, which disintegrated with a splintering crash. Stunned by the impact, I watched as the cow – not a bit put out by the incident – poked her head through the gaping hole where the windshield had been.
“Moo?” she inquired softly. But the driver, who had assumed a foetal position on his seat, did not reply; and so, with an apologetic nod at me, the beast withdrew her head and trotted off briskly down the road.
I disembarked and joined the interested crowd of sidewalk ghouls which had gathered. At length, the driver uncurled himself, a limb at a time, and lurched to his feet. And then, he began to curse.
We were awestruck by the flow and fluency of his expression. He began with a general character assassination of the impugned cow, went on to cast ghastly aspersions on its antecedents and parentage, and finally dismembered it with ritualistic slowness. “It should have been strangled at birth!” he cried, and demanded to know what the government was doing in the matter.
At this, a bystander chided him gently for speaking ill of divine bovinity.
“Rubbish!” the driver yelled. “That was no Bharatiya cow! I saw the spots on it: it had foreign blood in it. It was a foreigner, I tell you, a foreigner…”
Mani
Wanderings and Wonderings 