I recently came across this short book(64 pages) chronicling twelve stories of human-cow encounters that changed the lives of the men & women involved in them. Despite it’s short size and simple, uncomplicated wording the stories left me feeling happy and….emotionally overwhelmed.
It’s hard to express this in words, so I chose to write a couple of human-cow stories from my own life :-)
These are some short stories from my experiences with cows. There’s no “moral of the story” or lessons I’m trying to teach here. I simply felt like sharing them with you today :-)
Feeding Cows >>> Family Guests
I must have been 12 or 14 years old. We had travelled to the south-western coast of Karnataka, in the rural outskirts of the town of Mangalore — our family’s native land.
I remember it being a hot, humid day. We were at a relative’s house for a social gathering, I don’t recollect the occasion exactly(or who this relative was) but it must have been something big as at least 40–50 of our extended family friends & relatives had showed up.
But my 12 year old mind was somewhere else. Somewhere nearby, to the cow shed that this family owned. A short 5-minute walk from the main house, it housed a few cows. Being an agricultural household, this relative had a farm land and the cow-shed right next to their house(most rural families in South India do so) — areca nut trees dominated the field.
I was just excited to look at the cows — just to stare at them and make funny faces. I thought they were cute animals, especially the cubs with their cute-looking ears and big eyes. I just wanted to stare at them and make funny faces, gently rubbing my hands against their forehead, widening my eyes to mimic their face(I was twelve at the time!).
The workers at the shed were kind enough to let this kid do all he wants, and thought it safe to leave me alone with the cows — what harm could a 12-year old do to(or face from) cows that were safely tied within their shed?
But now, I got another pleasure from these cows — feeding them and watching them munch into their food. I thought that was cute too — just seeing their mouths move left & right with the sound of the hay getting crushed inside their mouths. So I went to the nearby haystack and started dumping some food onto the cows. They had just been served lunch and were relaxing sitting down in the shade of the cowshed. They all stood up and started eating! This led me to continue feeding them more and I started recklessly throwing more from the haystack.
Soon, the shed was filled with more hay than the haystack! And when I took a step back, even I could sense that that’s too much food for the cows. Luckily, after a while some workers from the farm showed up to check on the cows and were shocked at the sight! My mom too came looking for me, as she wanted me to spend some time with humans and socialise with the family members — she too got the shock of her life.
I was too scared for a while and stood away from the shed, simply looking at the workers grab the haystack back from the shed. The cows had eaten too much! Luckily, being a 12-year old meant I couldn’t be punished or scolded at. They just let me go. But I was actually scared for those couple of minutes between me realising that I practically shifted the entire haystack into the cow shed and the workers & my mom showing up to resolve this escalation!
Funny times when I look back at it now, but a tad too scary back then.
I hope those cows got some exercise to burn off those extra calories, and I hope they’ll forgive me for overfeeding them and disturbing their peaceful afternoon post-lunch nap.
Little Cow Uplifts The Mood On a Sad Occasion.
This second incident belongs to the pic at the top of this article.
This was a more recent incident, when I was 21 or 23 years old. We were back visiting our relative’s house. It was the occasion of my grand mother passing away. So the entire family had gathered for the funeral and the elders were busy with the rituals & ceremony.
While I adored my grandma, I did not spend enough time with her to develop a strong bond. So I naturally didn’t feel the same amount of sadness or grief that my dad did. However, I had spent some time with her and was no longer a 12-year old naive boy, so I could grasp the seriousness of the situation and did not want to play around with the relatives or make silly jokes with my cousins.
One day, me and my mom took a walk through the field(the areca nut was replaced by banana trees). A relative’s house was a short 10 minute walk through this field.
As we approached their house and could hear the sound of the pressure cooker whistling from the kitchen, I saw the cow shed — we had to walk past it to get to the house. As we were about to walk past the cow shed, a member of the house(I think it was my aunt) saw us and was happily approaching to greet us. But then, we saw something — a baby calf.
Sorry aunty, I’m spending more time with this fellow now! My mom is more expressive than I am, so she took the liberty of expressing my feelings more openly. Oh! How cut this fellow is! Oh my God! How can a living creature look so full of innocence and charm! She rubbed his forehead with her palms, but he was too scared and tried to walk away — he didn’t know who we were and was afraid to let strangers touch him.
We later learnt from my aunt that this fellow was less than ten days old! A couple of days ago, he had managed to evade the house and run away into the nearby field. Luckily, there was no danger to his life so he was just wandering around within the field.
We then spent the next hour or two at their house, drinking tea and munching on savoury snacks, talking about their lives and how the agriculture market is doing, etc.. But most of those two hours went at the cow shed. They also had two dogs and I remember spending a good amount of time next to their cage just calling out their names and looking at them.
I also distinctly remember my mom trying to rub the forehead of the calf’s mother, but she didn’t seem to trust this stranger. She would lift her head up to meet my mom’s hand with her nose, refusing to let her touch her forehead.
I realised I had suddenly transformed into that happy and naive 12-year old kid again. Somehow, the sadness of the occasion had gone away. I had forgotten why we were visiting our relatives(to mourn the passing away of a family elder), these cute cows(and the dogs) made me forget that and for a brief period of two hours — I was simply happy. The rest of the trip was more relaxed and I remember being more casual and smiling with the other relatives. My dad was happy with how the whole week went, and we were well-behaved with the rest of his extended family.
Some of the little pleasures I enjoy in my life is being with animals. Especially cows and elephants — I think they are cute looking animals. But also because they have a certain energy that uplifts everything around them.
Elephants show us how to be gentle while having so much strength. Yet they can be strong when needed, but are also tender and kind. I cannot imagine this world, this nature, without them.
Cows show us…..affection and love. It’s difficult to put this into words, but those are the emotions I experience when I see cows. A sense of attachment and belonging, a sense of wanting to be good to those around you. I dread thinking that a cow is disappointed in me — I wouldn’t want to cause sadness to a cow.
Thank You for listening to my story. If you want to see more of what my life has to offer, do go through my other articles.
Here’s a poem about how I build courage to talk to someone after seven years, only to be left broken.
Here’s an incident that made me realise we need to be kinder to people.
Here’s a personal commentary on why I feel our bodies are the most comlex and wonderful machines in this world.
