Cow-maraderie!

Aradhika  Sharma

One lady cow met another lady cow on the Chandigarh- Kasauli highway. Here’s how the conversation went:

Lady Cow 1: Arre Dhanno, what are you doing here? I’d heard that you’d been ‘saved’ and put into a shelter.

Lady Cow 2: Ulta, I have just saved myself from the shelter Behen Shanno, and am running away to Cowsauli (Kasauli) to look for greener pastures. Where are you going?

Shanno: What a cowincidence. I’m headed to Cowsauli too. Eating the polythene bags in the rubbish dumps were giving me acute cownstipation, so I decided to dump the city and take employment with my cousin Hariya. He runs a Sin Cleansing Agency, you know.

Dhanno: What sort of an enterprise is that?

Shanno: It’s a great new start-up. He’s mustered all the independently operating cows and created a collective that resolves people’s karmic and spiritual problems. 

Dhanno: That’s impressive! How does it function? 

Shanno: He’s stationed his operatives — he calls them cow-operatives — in every nook and cranny of the highways. People who want to wash away their sins see them and bring their vehicles to a screeching halt to feed them rotis, puris and halwa. This way the cow-peratives are assured a stomach full of food. 

Dhanno: What an ‘amoosing’ idea, but what does he get out of this?

Shanno: In return, they must forage for him and deposit all the grass they collect in a warehouse. Thereafter, Hariya sells it to the cow shelters to feed rescued cows. He’s having a bull run!

Dhanno: Machiavellian! But how does he keep the non-cowperative at bay?

Shanno: He headhunts for hungry, renegade cows that attack people and marauding herds that demolish crops and recruits them to keep the non-cowperatives in check. Like the wild west!

Dhanno: Ah! Using might to enforce spirituality. Powerful, age-old formula!

Shanno: Yes, Hariya was always the one to spot an opportunity and grab it by the horns!

Dhanno:  Talking of which, I think there will finally be achche din for us bovines soon. Have you noticed how every political party is trying to give us free shelters, food and making us a part of their poll manifestos?

Shanno: Not just that, I read in one of the newspapers (before I ate it up) that the Congress Government in Rajasthan will felicitate people who adopt stray cows on Republic Day. Lucky Rajasthani cows!

Dhanno: Well, I just hope that it’s not all bull! Every political party seems to be milking us dry for electoral advantages.

Shanno: Delhiwallahs are even going to put retired cows with retired people. I’m not sure if gaushala-cum-old age homes will be fun for us or ‘udder’ drags!

Dhanno: And the UP government is going to make big companies sponsor gaushalas as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility! We’ll soon be cowrporatised.

Shanno: And the Uttarakhand government is soon going to declare us rashtramata — mother of the nation.

Dhanno: Uttar Pradesh government is apparently going to slap an additional 0.5 per cent on excise items as Gau Kalyan cess. 

Shanno: Looks like our stock has really gone up.

Dhanno: Yup. For butter or worse!