I tried to help a bleeding cow, but this is what happened
Studying environment and sustainability made me aware of the planet and its concerns but somehow my fear of animals never went away. That fear has a childhood legacy, when I was attacked by a stray cow.
So, when a few days ago I read in the news about a state government starting an ambulance service for cows, I dismissed the news as one of the rotten headlines you see in newspapers every day these days. Being as anthropocentric as I considered myself to be, I went on with my usual day to day business.
It was a warm Saturday evening when I was going for my swimming sessions. Otherwise a pleasant evening which I wanted it to be, I saw a stray cow being hit by a car. Everything was at a stand-still for a few seconds. The cow managed to get up. She was bleeding profusely and the blood had spluttered on the glass panes of the car.
The driver came out, helped the cow in walking towards the side, wiped all the blood from the glass panes and rushed away. I was aghast. A few years ago when I had seen a man bleeding profusely on the street, I had informed the nearest police station about it. This time I did not know what to do. I just could not stand that sight but I was too shocked to leave. There was so much hurt in the watery eyes of the cow.
I immediately googled a few numbers of veterinary doctors around the area. I managed to get through a couple of them. However, the responses from them were disappointing. They varied from artificial concern by some NGO staff (when they gave me a few numbers which were unreachable) to the chuckles of some vets when they said they are too elite to treat cows. They just treat dogs and cats, I was told.
I called up some ten numbers in half an hour but all efforts were in vain. All this while, the cow was sitting on the side of the road bleeding. I left the sight in sheer helplessness and disgust. I returned again after an hour to see the cow. The animal was not around. A local vendor told me that she somehow managed to get up and move away.
From the political vantage point, the cow is probably the most important agenda in today’s politics and society. Headlines in newspapers have gone stale with repeated coverage of the issue of cow protection.
India has some 76 million cows, producing 140 million tonne of milk every day, making us the highest producer of milk in the world. Being the utilitarian society we have turned into, we have discovered several reasons to worship the cow. Is it not a shame that we need economic reasons to worship an animal?
The emotional connection with the animal is completely lacking. When we happily feed the cow with the garbage of our house, we do not think twice. When these cows become too old to give milk, their skin is used to make leather. It was not very long ago when doctors found that nearly 100 kg of waste, including iron nails, plastic bags and socks, had been discovered in the stomach of a cow in Gujarat.
In all the empty rhetoric around cow protection, my experience helped me in reviving my sensitivity towards animals and reaffirmed the hypocrisy of the times we live in.
I know that had even one out of ten numbers responded to my calls that evening, I could have slept with a lighter heart that night.