Cow Attack!

India has cows. A lot of cows. It seems to me that the cow population probably is half that of the human population here.

And they are everywhere. Likewise are their droppings.

They are on the roads, on the sidewalks (if there was one) and just about anywhere else that’s not fenced up. As most Indians regard the cow as almost like a deity, they will not control or restrict their movements. I saw a sigh that said, “Cows are the Mother of Prosperity”. I kid you not.

But these cows are not like the ones you would see on some milk advertisement – the black and white types. Indian cows come in all sorts of colors, from black to brown to spotted white & brown.

And some of these cows have like a bell tied to them. So when they move, they make this clink-clank sound – kinda like someone knocking a mess-tin with a spoon. That’s not the only noise they make. Contrary to popular belief that cows only moo, these cows seem to like to grunt and snort a lot more.

And it seems that the cows move a lot at night. When we are all settled in for the evening out in the field, there will be the inevitable sounds of clink-clank/grunting/snorting all around us. I think Indian cows are probably nocturnal – only grazing at night.

We usually put up a simple cordon with white tape to mark out our sleeping areas so that vehicles will not just drive into/onto us.

Now I suspect that since Indian cows have been treated with such deference for so long, they have little respect/care for human activities. They will just stroll along in the middle of the roads, sometimes just sitting there. Traffic doesn’t seem to faze them. And they will not hesitate to go closer to something that catches their attention. And so, we regularly have to shoo them away from the roads and our vehicles.

One evening, my dreams seem to consist of someone knocking a mess-tin with a spoon. At first, I thought it might have been due to the fact that I had cooked some instant noodles with my mess tin and I was probably having some weird dream because of it. But the sound got louder and louder until it finally woke me up. And when I peeped out of my sleeping bag, I saw this huge brown/white cow looking at me from about a meter away.

Needless to say, I was surprised by it and let out a loud shout which scared the cow away.

Unfortunately the incident was witness by some of the other guys, and now the stories are so convoluted that it surpasses belief.

One version was that the cow was so attracted to me by my snoring that it started to lick my behind. I have already given up trying to explain and correct the story. I was in a sleeping bag so there was no licking of any sorts. Besides, I woke up and saw the cow before it could touch me. Sigh…

I am so going to eat beef when I get back home.