So Many Cows...What To Do?

Chopta-Rishikesh 162, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

Cows are everywhere; on the street corner, crossing traffic, impeding traffic, in the alley, in the trash heap, getting massages from people passing by, on the steps of 15th century monuments, on foot bridges bringing pedestrians to a halt, and even in homeless cow shelters. Streets are stained with cow manure that fills the air with its distinct aroma bringing with it thousands of flies awaiting yet another feast. Streets are not knee-deep with manure because the dung is constantly being gathered to eventually be forged into dried out disks to be used as fuel. Cows provide many essential elements for everyday life; milk, curds, ghee butter, urine and dung — are all used in puja (worship) as well as in rites of extreme penance. The milk of the family cow nourishes children as they grow up, and cow dung is a major source of energy for households throughout India. Cow dung is sometimes among the materials used for a tilak-a ritual mark on the forehead. Most Indians do not share the western revulsion at cow excrement, but instead consider it an earthy and useful natural product. (If you don't believe me check out this article on the front page of a Delhi newspaper a month ago http://www.indianexpress.com/story/286437.html Cow urine seems to do the trick) So, when I am caught in a traffic jam caused by an emaciated cow wandering through traffic or see people sharing a fresh roti (flatbread that is a staple of an Indian diet) with a playfully aggressive bull on the street corner that feels he is just as entitled to the roti as the purchaser, I get frustrated, amused and bewildered that such a different world exists. This life is not wrong, it is just different.

Why is this world so different you ask? The majority of Indians are Hindus. Hindus have many gods and worship each for a particular reason. Cows are involved with many of these gods- Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva in particular. Lord Krishna was a cowherd, and the bull is depicted as the vehicle of Lord Shiva. Today the cow has almost become a symbol of Hinduism. Holy cows are not always happy cows though. Many of the cows roaming the streets of India are malnourished, surviving on whatever they can find in the trash heaps beside local markets. Many of the cows end up eating plastic bags, cardboard boxes and other manufactured goods that get wrapped around their stomachs often turning fatal. This is disastrous for a country and a people that worship the animal. The solution: government run homeless cow shelters called goshalas. Goshalas were set of for a couple reasons. The religious reason is to treat, protect, nurture, and ultimately save the dying nomads roaming the streets. The more practical reason is the clash between a developing nation and its religious base.

India is growing at an alarming rate. It has the fastest growing middle class in the world and one of the fastest growing economies in the world with construction happening everywhere. It is a fascinating time to be in India at this point in time to witness the changes taking place. Even though I have no prior experience in the country to accurately judge the rate of change, it is not hard to see that basically everything seems to be under construction: new subways, bridges, roads, hydo-electric projects, shopping malls, movie theatres, Mcdonalds, KFC and much more. It is like stepping back in time to when America or Western Europe was developing. The construction is not being done by massive bulldozers, graters, or other advanced machinery as I am accustomed to seeing back home. Most of it is being done by people; dozens of them chiseling away at rocks with hammers to produce gravel, digging roadside ditches with nothing more than a pick axe, patching old roads with scolding hot asphalt by hand and building bridges as fast as the workers can carry the beams to the top. The most shocking aspect about the labor is the majority of it is performed by women, occasionally with a baby wrapped around their backs. If she tires from the additional weight wrapped on her back, the baby will be placed on the curb, dangerously close to the unpredictable traffic. She has no other option. Just today I watched as a group of workers cleared a rock slide from a ditch with the women being the ones actually carrying the rocks to the truck, not the men. They just helped load the buckets as the women carried the loaded buckets on their heads to the dump truck for removal.

With a country that is modernizing rapidly, nomadic cows wandering the streets can hinder development. The goshalas are being set up across the country as a place to put all of the wandering bovine because they can't be eaten. The goshalas I have visited have been financed by various religious organizations, private donors, or local governments. They range between fifty cows to over a thousand depending on the facilities. All people involved seem to be happy with the situation and are looking to expand. The most exciting part of all of this is the actual capture of the homeless cows on the streets that can often turn violent; not for the cows but for the catchers themselves. It turns violent when the unsuspecting cows are being chased through the streets by the urban cowboys with the objective of getting them into a truck door wedged against the side of a building. The cows can become angry of course and cause harm but the average bystander often helps the cows escape by fighting off the John Wayne's of the Indian streets. I have never witnessed such an event but the goshala managers have told me some comical stories of the round-ups. It should be quite a sight.