Final barks from Yulin dog meat festival: A letter to an Indian cow

• Behind the dumpster,
• Munirka Gaon,
• New Delhi, India
• 110067

Dear Mata,

Hello!

I must admit to you right away that my exclamation mark is more of a matter of habit. I don’t really feel chirpy. No, I am in panic. I am a few minutes away from being killed and eaten. And, frankly, this is upsetting me.

My kin and I, our friends and a sea of strangers are currently locked inside metal cages. There is no room to move, and the place smells like a mixture of hair, sweat and steam. Our hearts are bouncing madly against our rib cages. Rows of our rigid, roasted brethren hang from hooks.

Also read: Inside story of China's dogs slaughtering and eating festival

Humans are walking around with bowls, rods and knives and, every few minutes, us dogs get to watch one of ours die in any one of a selection of ways. Being boiled alive, suffocated, skinned, beaten to death and roasted via blowtorch are some of the available options.

Here in Yulin, ma’am, these are festivities. And we are the edible objects of the festival. Every year these humans round up all the dogs they can and then eat them. Between these two acts is the part where we die painfully.

Every family in our community has lost loved ones to this Yulin dog festival, and we have a shrine commemorating our martyrs. I join them today, but hopefully can finish this letter to you before that happens.

You are surely wondering what this is all about. Why would I, in my last glimpses, write to you, who I have never met? It’s simple: I envy you. And I want you to know it. Of course, my impending death is heightening my jealousy but for long I have felt short-changed when stories about your status in India have reached me. Yes, you are famous among your northern friends.

Also read: Why China's dog eating festival makes us lose our appetite

Mata, you are revered. From my standpoint, frustratingly so. When you are treated everyday like me and my friends are, news of your worship seems both bizarre and deflating.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not your fault, and even if it is, there's nothing wrong with that. I quite realise my half-jealous, half-fanboy tone; you, too, should understand my predicament and forgive me.

Let me give you an example: we, like our kin in your own country, come under cars all the time. That is why I have often admired how in your country, you never get hit by traffic; traffic moves around you and hits itself! I have admired your calm grace as you stroll up a street and nonchalantly clog it to a standstill.

You take your time, oblivious to human pressures, as if there is some cosmic, pre-ordained arrangement which enables you so. I wish I could have done that, when I was free. Ever seen a cow chase cars, like we do? Of course not.

Some of the angrier ones in our community do it when cars remind them of how many dogs die under them. But I digress.

The law is on your side. It has spread itself thin in order to do so. Nearly your entire country prohibits your killing. From rural homes to the high offices of government, you are held in such high regard. People want to garland you and dress you in ribbons and paint. They open shelter homes for you. They take offence on your behalf.

Here, superstition dictates that eating our flesh with lychees brings health and luck. In your country, drinking your urine will suffice. That, in nutshell, is what I’m talking about.

I guess this is fine. It makes me envious, but I can respect the tradition. However, other, most disturbing facets of this reverence have come to my attention. Is it not true that your name is invoked during elections to "polarise" humans.

Also read: How Hindus killed a Muslim over beef and murdered India's secularism

I did not know this word. When I heard your country is being polarised, at first I thought your humans are importing Arctic wildlife. But no, it turns out gangs of vigilantes conduct manhunts over rumours you were eaten. Didn’t somebody die? I hope you don’t deny it. My other pen pal lives in Dadri, so don’t even start. 

It’s unfortunate, but at this moment even this makes me feel unlucky by contrast. Gau-mata, at your feet lie thousands of gau-shaalas, gau-raksha samitis and gau-rakshaks ready to blacken people’s faces or worse.

As this dog’s life ends, he too wishes that he was regarded as a, say bhau-mata, living in a bhau-shaala, with an army of bhau-rakshaks who would attack anyone seeking to eat bhau-maas. Lol?

I jest, but in all this, I also sense you are being used. And that too is part of the reason why I write to you. Beware, ma’am, I have doubts about the sincerity of those who say they will kill in your name.

I think you are more excuse than reason. Where there are murderous shows of respect for you, there is also every corner and garbage dump in Delhi where you eat trash daily.

How can they let you put plastic in your belly and claim to love you? I don’t get how the cow-hugging narrative doesn’t account for the everyday, where so many of you don’t live much differently than my crew in Yulin.

You are often neglected like me. There is just no pretension of respect in my case. You are dying of drought as we die by the knife. So I suppose, in a slightly morbid sense, Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai?

A final point - animal to animal - since we are discussing the hypocrisy of humans. Some of our chicken and pig friends are often upset with us dogs because humans give us preferential treatment. They accuse of us "acting cute". They think our lovability ensures that there will be outrage when we are culled, but when they are, its just business as usual. They have a point, I think.

You know what the worst part is? Good, sensitive humans - the kind of people who protest against deforestation and oppression – they eat dog and beef. They eat chicken and mutton. And they are entirely moral beings. Just the part where they eat commercialised flesh is missing from their scope.

When questioned about it by others of their kind, they don’t have answers. They often admit they are wrong but the taste is good. That also upsets me. It sounds almost poetic to think the lack of hypocrisy in Yulin is better. But it isn’t. They’re going to kill us. And, in squeaks and barks, we mind. Even if our tongues don’t wag in Mandarin.

That’s all I really want to say to you. Hopefully, you are not offended. If you are, I apologise posthumously.

Also, you may be wondering how I know all this stuff. I’ll tell you: I saw it online. Yes, I’m a dog and I write letters and surf Weibo. And now I see the blowtorch coming. Bye.

Yours sincerely,

Li Yong Do Gi

• A cage,
• Dongkou Market,
• Yulin,
• Guangxi, China
• 537000