Holy Cow!

 

 

 

 

 

BY ADITYA SHILEDAR 

 

 

IT IS a calm Sunday morning, in a quiet residential colony. There’s a placid white cow sitting serenely in front of a bungalow. Other cows come by and cross her, but she doesn’t stir. Other people also pass by, and she still doesn’t stir. The whole world pass by like a rolling series of images. But she doesn’t stir. And neither does the rest of the world. Everyone who passes her by is equally unconcerned. Of course, there is the odd exception of the highly frustrated individual; but one really can’t do anything much, can one? Cows must be tolerated; they are a ‘necessary’ part of our cityscapes. Welcome to the ‘modern’ cityscape, where the rural and urban mix as seamlessly as milk and water. In fact, as some would say, this is also where the ‘holy’ and the ‘secular’ come together. This is our great problem today: that we have normalised this ‘phenomenon’. To some, perhaps, it may not appear like a ‘great problem’ at all, but that is only a mark of how common and ubiquitous it has become. Not only do cows plant themselves near our houses, but their purview also extends to flyovers, traffic intersections, busy main roads, and sometimes even gated complexes. Indeed, every cow has its day, but in India, they have been having their decade.

 

One wonders what has happened to our better senses that we allow such things to go on for so long. Somewhere along the way, the collective conscience has failed to be critical of this. It has never flapped open the umbrellas of critical enquiry. At best, there has only been questioning about it –but without serious effect. And that has led to giving it some sort of normalcy. Norms, when relaxed, tend to lead to further relaxation; this paves way for a modification of the original norm. Gradually, our perceptions of what is normal start to widen. But in this case, since there has never been complete turnaround, we have let matters slide out of our hands. So we have always put up with it, just as we have put up with untimely showers in April. To some extent, a reverence for religion has kept us at a distance. When cows tread our footpaths, we join our hands in prayer; but when they make the footpath dirty, we carefully skirt our way past it.

 

Our settings and our preoccupations are undoubtedly very urban, very secular; but in our dealings with them, we let religious reverence have the upper hand. As a result, we blindfold ourselves to all the hazards posed by bovine presence on roads. And in the process, we endanger both ourselves and the ‘holy goddesses’. Behind this picture of incipient disaster lies a deep-rooted mentality of unconcern. A deeply problematic attitude of ‘Jaane do na!” is visible here. We are fond of uttering and reiterating phrases like “Go with the flow,” but in this case, we have gone on for too long. The flow must be arrested. For too long, the public spirit of “Jaane do na!” has given safe passage to this flow. And now the grass is growing under our feet. We complain of a pain whose seeds we have sown unknowingly. What could be the remedy?