A Puzzled Bovine: Abhinaya Rao

There it stood, blinking. A cow in the middle of the road. Huge and stupefied, bang in the midst of the city's busiest intersections. It looked like the poor thing needed to deliver its calf right there ;it was that huge and waddling. Traffic swerved and cursed to avoid it, gigantic stupid mom-to-be who didn't know any better than to stand in the
middle of important intersections. All it did was stand there and blink occasionally, the fast track zooming past in all directions. Luckily it was a Sunday so there wasn't much traffic. But then again, this meant
that traffic speeds were at their highest and accidental collisions much more likely. Whatever. It was only a pregnant cow.

Life in the fast lane holds no appeal for cows. In the world of cows, existence is sedate and gracious - calmly grazing while the sun is in the sky, sleeping when it is no longer day, being mounted by an
occasional bull when the time is right to breed and then back to grazing, sleeping, grazing. A life as constant as daybreak and nightfall. Except when the farmer takes some into the city for slaughter or when one, this is rare, misplaces itself in the city by wandering.

It was obvious this one was not here for slaughtering ; it was due to deliver anytime. How could something so big and unwieldy have managed to lose itself in the worst place on earth for any living thing? A city is
no place for existence, for being sedate, for graciousness. A city is no place to give birth. Life must be brought into a green world, a lovely world, a world that wants it there. A city seeks death not life. An intersection is no place for a calf to be born. Imagine its first contact with reality outside the soft walls of the womb - smoke and noise,
toxic dust in its raw pink nostrils, the taste of acrid exhaust on its tongue! A city is no place for a cow to give birth. No mother would choose it for her own young.

But it just stood there. Chewing nothing. Stoic courage? Brave pretence? Or was that contempt flashing in a bovine eye? A suicide to be, perhaps. No reaction to car horns, irate drivers, curses. No reaction to metallic monsters zooming past. Calmly chewing. Heavy with calf. A cow in the middle of the road.

 

NEXT STORY>