A Mexican in India – 4 – Cows in India

September 6th, 2010 by Dariela Escobar

I had always heard about cows being sacred in India. Before coming here, I was prepared to find them on the streets and I knew I wouldn’t eat beef for some time, but here are some things I’ve learned about cows in the past few months.

One of my first days in India, I was waiting at a bus stop for about 20 minutes, and the whole time there was a cow just standing right in the middle of the street! It was standing there completely calm, with no intentions of moving or going anywhere else, just watching cars go by! Cars would hunk and drivers would scream, but the cow still didn’t move! Until this moment, I had only seen cows on the sidewalk or in a corner or trying to cross a street looking very scared… But this one didn’t seem to have any emotions at all! After that I found many emotionless cows like this one.

So why are there cows in India? I used to think that cows just wandered around with no owner and no place to go… But it turns out they do have an owner! A friend told me that poor people in India buy cows because they are very cheap, but that they don’t have money to feed them, so in the mornings they let them loose, so they go and find garbage to eat in the streets! It’s almost impossible to find a trash can in the streets, and when you do find one, they’re usually shaped as a monkey, a rabbit or even a penguin! And they always say USE ME.

So you can see big mountains of trash everywhere and here you always find cows and dogs sharing a meal without seeming to be bothered by each other! And at nights, the cow-owners go out to look for their cows and bring them back home.

I’ve also seen cows just sleeping in the streets, in some parts it looks like a cow parking, you see them all lined up next to each other sleeping. I find this story very sad, I used to like seeing cows in the streets, but now I just think “poor cows”, and these people live from selling the cow’s milk… which unfortunately is the milk I drink! But I try not to think about the cow-processed-garbage-source of the milk while I drink it!

I’m already very used to cow sightings in India, you can really find them anywhere and at any time. In Gokarna, there was a crazy cow chasing after Cae, Sini, Claire, and me at the bus station. At first we were amused, taking pictures of her (which unfortunately got lost), but after a while she wouldn’t leave us alone! She was sniffing our backpacks and following us everywhere, I guess the poor cow wanted food, but it still took us a long time to get her to leave… and then of course, she went to harass someone else!

Some cows are fat, some are very, very skinny, some are small, big, white, black, brown, and some rare ones are white with black spots. Once I even saw a cow that appeared to be drunk! It couldn’t keep her balance, I felt terrible for this particular cow. You can see some cows with a Bindi (the red dot in the forehead) and some people in the streets touch them because of the belief that they’re sacred. But in other places, people yell at them and even hit them with sticks to get them to move, specially shop owners that keep vegetables on the street, to keep the cow from eating them.

So what do you think? How do you feel about cows in India? Can you think of any solutions to have happier and healthier cows in India? Write it in your comments!!

Do you want to watch my pics?? Click here!!

Comments View Comments|

A Mexican in India – 3 – Life in Bangalore

August 17th, 2010 by Dariela Escobar

I got to Bangalore’s airport. I could feel the heat coming from outside already. Ankit (from AIESEC Bangalore) and Caetano (a trainee from Brasil) were waiting for me, then I met Mariane and Raunaq, and the 5 of us went together in Raunaq’s car to an AIESEC congress (LCong 2010), where I met more trainees [...]

Read More

Comments View Comments|

A Mexican in India – 2 – The Ash Cloud

August 9th, 2010 by Dariela Escobar

The trip…
On April 11th I left Mexico. After a forgotten credit card, an excess luggage fee, hugs and tears (from my friends, not from me!) I was on a plane on my way to Amsterdam. I sat next to a Mexican woman and her baby, her husband is from Norway and she was traveling with [...]

Read More

Comments View Comments|

A Mexican in India – Before coming to India!

July 28th, 2010 by Dariela Escobar

August, the dream begins…
“Try to say YES to every opportunity that comes along” I thought. Then my friend Rod called me and said “Do you want to come with me to the Panamerican University to hear a talk about an exchange program?? It’s about something called AIESEC“. And so we went. [...]

Read More

Comments View Comments|

Recent Entries


Powered by Disqus


RSS Feed

Login

Recent Entries

Give us feedback

alley@outsmart360.com

Search our Blog