Feeding the Cows

We fed the cows with Kantuba, Amit's 92 year old grandma ("ba" refers to "grandma"). It was a very special occasion since, although she climbs up and down the stairs two or three times a day, Kantuba rarely leaves the yard.

Mukenmama, Amit's uncle and Kantuba's son who she lives with, concieved this plan to feed the cows "for two reasons," as he will tell you: first reason is that I like Kantuba very much; second reason is that I like cows very much. As readers of my blog will be aware, I especially like cows in the road. The day that he proposed the plan to feed the cows Munkenmama had witnessed that I like cows the most when they are crossing the street in the middle of busy Surat traffic.

Kantuba has an especial love for cows as a devout Hindu. Feeding the cows is a religious event for Hindus, since they believe that cows are sacred. Additionally, after Mukenmama concieved the plan to feed the cows, he remembered that this was an auspicious day to feed them according to the Hindu calendar. This made Kantuba even more happy with the plan.

At this point in her life, Kantuba devotes much of her energy to religious purposes. Every morning, she performs the "seva," a worship of the house deity. In her house, a figure of the god, Shurnagi (a form of Krishna that is special to Amit's family), resides in a minature temple. Kantuba takes the god figure out of the temple every morning, washes and dresses him, prays, and makes an offering of food. She was pleased with me when I ate the food offering, consisting of fruit or a kind of cookie dough and called "presad", that had been made to the god. She pressed into my mouth gleefully.

Amit and I thought that we would drive to a field to feed the cows. Instead, we found ourselves in a dirt parking lot. Behind wood planks, cows jostled to get at the slop that people standing on a platform above them were dropping into trays. The two pens had at least fifty cows apiece. There were a dozen people there feeding them.

Kantuba, in her eagerness to get out of the car, pushed open the car door herself. She hoisted herself up, and, barefoot, propelled herself over the dirt, grabbing at my hand for support. She was a determined sight.

As she moved across the lot, a man stopped in front of her, folded his hands together, and, exclaiming, "Mother," dropped his head for her blessing. She touched him briefly on his shoulders (a bit dismissively, I thought,) and, again, pushed forward diligently, satisfied only when she was in front of the cows, dropping a wheat powder through the slat in the fence. The cows licked at it, happily, with thick, pink tongues.

Afterwards, Kantuba took us all into an office building on the lot and directed Mukenmama, her son, to hand over money to the clerk behind the desk. She received a reciept in return which she looked at for a few minutes, tracing the script on it, then smoothed and folded carefully, hiding it inside the palm of her hand. (Saris do not have pockets.) The money was for the support of the cows. Mukenmama explained to Amit and me that they are "orphans", cared for with donations of food and money from the public.

As we moved back across the parking lot, Kantuba clutching my hand, she turned to me and explained joyfully in Gujarti, "Gai Mater" ("Cow Mother").

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