Tuesday, 23 October
A naughty cow is ravaging a garbage bin on the side of the road. Another saunters across the main-road nonchalant, obviously expecting the moving traffic to perform the necessary manoeuvres to avoid collision. The yellow taxi taking me from the airport to the city swerves an expert S-shape. A smile crawls across my face. How wonderful to return to India!
Ever since my first trip to India in 2002, my heart was touched by the roaming cows. In South India I became curious how the beach-cows routinely came begging for alms from each restaurant in turn. Often I crossed wandering cows in the streets and the roadside, ever-amused by their antics. I have had stuff playfully stolen by them (a tasty book or some fruit). Living side-by-side them, I could no longer perceive them as mere cattle or livestock. It was then that I stopped eating beef.
Thursday, 25 October
My impulse is to return to Nabadwip. It is only three hours (very little by Indian standards) from where I landed in the midst of Kolkata's (Calcutta's) madness and an ideal retreat for the first few days of adjusting. I am actually quite enchanted by this haven in West Bengal, the beautiful land of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who propagated love for Sri Krishna, the cow-herd god, and his consort Srimati Radharani, the milk-maid goddess.
Friday, 26 October
I go to visit the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Mathashram which I had visited back in March. It was very busy then, during the festival period. Now is an entirely different mood, very familial. The Bengali calendar indicates today as the first day of the month of Karttik, a particularly auspicious month for Vaishnavas remembering the Divine Couple, particularly in Vrindavan near Delhi, where they performed their past-times on this earth. Nabadwip is full of devotional atmosphere nonetheless.
A Venezuelen devotee coincidentally named Vrinda, who has lived here for two years, takes me to see the calves: Vaishnavi and Shyama are a few days old while Karttiki was born today! I fall in love. Little Karttiki is unsteady on her feet, trembling, vulnerable and incredibly cute. Her mama has difficulty producing milk so Karttiki is led to a surrogate milking cow to receive her nourishment.
There are about seven more pregnant cows among the 85 living here, kept in their own separate, controlled area. It is actually the first time I see cows tended within a goshala, or cowshed. One gentle bull lives with them while the angry one lives across in the larger space where the other cows are free to roam.
I find myself showering affection on the little calves, petting them while hoping to be allowed a hug regardless of the bits of dry dung attached to their fur (it looks no different from dry mud). “They are too young to be bathed,” says Sripad Acharyya Maharaj, one of the monks, who appears just then. Remembering me, he invites me to stay within the temple compound as before, which I gladly accept!
Monday, 29 October
It is impressing to see the amount of energy that must go into keeping the cows comfortable: cleaning the goshala, feeding, giving water, milking, cleaning again, bathing the cows, feeding again, water again, milking again. Then there are premature births, blocked teats and all sorts of problems to deal with while time must be taken out for vet-visits, medication of wounds and giving special care to the young ones.
I often feel like I want to pick up a shovel and help clear the huge quantities of dung they produce, or to make myself useful in some way, but I suspect my lack of knowledge would only be a hindrance. I content with giving a little daily TLC (tender-loving-care) to the calves. The men are also happy with that, proved by the wide smiles produced every time our eyes meet.
Wednesday, 31 October
I discover that the reason why Vaishnavi has bald patches on much of her body is because she was born during the flood. The adverse conditions surrounding her birth led her to contracting a skin disease that is fortunately on the mend. I can see the fine, white fur coming through on her pink patches.
It is only about three weeks ago that the Ganges river started to retreat from Nabadwip. Vrinda shows me flood pictures that are quite amazing. The streets were thigh-deep in water. Rickshaws were replaced with boats. People had left their houses to live on the road-bridge that crosses the Ganges and the cows were living on the roof of a stone building! I guess I just got the timing right!
Friday, 2 November
In India we find as many conceptions and manifestations of god as one could possibly conceive. Sri Sri Laxmi-Vishnu are perhaps the most grand. Sri Sri Parvati-Shiva are perhaps the most austere yet powerful. Sri Sri Sita-Rama are perhaps the most pious. Sri Sri Radha-Govinda are certainly the sweetest. Govinda and Gopala are also names of Krishna. Gopala refers to Krishna as a young cowherd boy while Govinda is he who gives pleasure to the cows and to all the senses.
Just like we find that in Jerusalem, Jesus was born in a stable and brought up in the house of a carpenter, in India, Krishna was raised as the son of Nanda, a cowherd man, and Yasoda, his adoptive parents despite an actually noble birth. Both present god in his most simple, loving, human feature, regardless of where one's faith may lie.
It is something remarkable how in their simplicity, Sri Sri Radha-Krishna command supremacy above all other conceptions of divinity here in India. Vaishnavas state that this Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, while all demigods, godesses and avatars (incarnations) emanate from him – a claim supported by much of the ancient Vedic literature of India (veda means knowledge).
Krishna abides in Goloka (land of the cows) Vrindavan eternally playing his lila (past-times) with his entourage of cows, cowherd-friends (gopas) including his brother Balaram, and the milk-damsels (gopis). Thus the holy cow is the most faithful companion of the supreme lord. Meanwhile, Lord Shiva, who is also widely revered, rides the white bull Nandi (all demigods have a carrier or vahana).
While both Shiva and Krishna are often depicted with their hooved companions, what is perhaps less obvious to a visitor in India is that the entity living within a cow and the planet earth are considered non-different. Both are an incarnation of the goddess Bhumi Devi. Thus, further to the direct connection of cows and bulls to divinity, there is also a strong belief that if cows are mis-treated, the earth reduces production of grains and herbs!
Interestingly, many activitist groups insist that if the land used for beef-cow grazing was utilised for growing grains it would feed many more people. On a more subtle level, the ancient peoples who cultivated land and lived in close proximity with nature also considered the earth as a personality, Mother Earth. It is only in this age of exploitation that science has established that our planet is nothing more than a heap of minerals, while the cow and all creatures simply exist to serve man's greed.
Saturday, 3 November
Actually the cow is always happily serving and is much more valuable alive than dead! Milk, ghee (clarified butter), paneer (white cheese)... all are produced from the cow and feeding millions of people in India every day. Some remote villages still have common-laws that state that milk should not be sold but given freely, while he who sells the milk-products will never be able to find marriage partners for his children.
In the vedic scriptures, milking the cow is considered the same as drawing the principles of religion in a liquid form. It is sattvic food, that is, in the mode of goodness (as opposed to passion or ignorance referring to the three gunas, or qualities of material nature), repleat with motherly nourishment given to all creatures without expectation of returns, while the cow is taking only the minimum blades of grass for her own sustainance. The great rishis and munis (sages of ancient times) would live only on milk.
But it is not all about milk. The dung of the cows is also very useful! The dung is mixed with soil and water to make a thick mud which is used as one of the main building materials in India, especially in the South and in rural areas. The resulting mud-huts are surprisingly clean and when polished actually appear shiny! Furthermore the cow-dung content acts as an insect repellent.
If that were not enough, round patties of cow-dung curiously pasted in rows on walls to dry, bearing the tiny hand-print of the manufacturer, are used as cooking fuel. Furthermore, according to the Ayurveda, the urine from a healthy cow is considered a great medicine for a large number of ailments!
Meanwhile, the cow's distant cousins, the ox and the water-buffalo are among India's hardest workers. Even if sceptical of the cow's spiritual nature, on a practical level nobody can deny the huge contribution these animals give to Indian society and culture. In one way or another it is indeed the land of the holy cow.
Go-puja, the festival for worship of the cow, is due in a week, on 10 November. I will not go so far as worshiping her, but I certainly have much respect and affection for the mother who nourishes all the earth's creatures.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math website:
www.scsmath.com
For more information, email:
math@scsmath.com or malta@scsmath.org
Episode 21 of Melanie Drury's diary is due on 19 November.
www.melaniedrury.com
info@melaniedrury.com
