"Everybody Love Lactating Cow"

When the street is only 12 foot wide and there are two autorickshaws and five motorbikes intersecting the pavementless pedestrians and doorstep shop owners, you’d think you might notice that this eccentrically functioning scene is being conducted around a small herd of stoic, plastic chewing cattle, but after almost 6 months in India it’s just another street in another Indian town.


Sometimes you see a stargazing¹ cow in the street.  This cow does actually draw the attention of passers by, who gently touch the stretched skin which keeps safe her protruding calf, then touch their hearts and foreheads.  Sometimes the same cow seems to gaze for days in different streets and the same people bless her calf repeatedly in silent prayer.


I saw a colourful piece of applique in Gujarat which depicted a village scene set around the phrase “Everybody Love Lactating Cow”.  Granted it was not the catchiest strapline, but in a largely vegetarian country, dairy produce is an essential sustainer of human life, so the phrase sums up beautifully why the cow here is such a scared symbol of life.

Walking through street herds is not dangerous unless you are passing a cow which has an itch because when you are squeezing between an auto rickshaw and a foot-long horn it isn’t funny when the horn suddenly needs to move.  Fortunately I have only had my bag displaced in this way but I almost took one in the boob in Jodphur.

Unlike herds of UK bullocks, street herds do not get bored so have no need to thunder towards you and trample your terriers.  In fact these cows only run away from people and only then when they have stolen something tasty and have been shown a big stick.  They can often be seen at dawn curled up beside their street dog friends …united in grime.

With the exception of continually besieged fruit and veg sellers (men with big sticks), India continues to go the extra mile to show her deference to these free ranging beasts.  The slaughter of cows was made illegal in Madhya Pradesh whilst I was there.  The papers didn’t knock the state ruling party for disrespecting the rights of the meat eater as they would have done in the UK, they simply reported that this had been made official and woe betide anyone who thought of doing so, there were even sub rules about taking the state’s cows and slaughtering them elsewhere.

I passed a dead cow in Jaipur the other day.  Like everything spent here, it was in the gutter.  I don’t know what they do with the dead ones, maybe nobody wants to touch them for fear of going down on slaughter charges? Perhaps the meat sweepers follow the street sweepers?  I wonder how many get eaten?  The beef can’t all be buffalo meat and India isn’t short on entrepreneurial spirit…

¹ This is the “looking upwards” behaviour cows engage in before giving birth