Bovine Intervention

I am just back from my village.
This was my first visit after last week’s shootout.
I am alive and unhurt, Neha is glad for that. My insurance premiums were not paid.

As a strategy, or maybe because of my nature to avoid confrontation as long as possible.
I did not speak much to the sheriff at home and even avoided all his initiatives to start a dialog. I did not want the situation to be normal. Normal is boring.

Though, one thing did get my attention.
It was a matter of 12 lives.
They were all starving and I had to get involved to save them from starvation death.

Having a bovine strength for landlords in our part of the world is matter of pride. Ones social status reflects on the number of cows you have tied in your back yard. We have 12 as on today. I counted them after a long gap today. Collective milk that is produced is 9 lts a day and money spent of food and labour per day is 900 a day. Milk for Rs. 100 a lt.

My father must have realized this long time back and conveniently left it to others in the family to deal with. He wanted his pride to be retained without taking any costs. Younger brother, Rohan, thought of proving himself worthy and took up to the daunting task. In last two years he must have lost atleast Rs. 5 lakhs in supporting these animals, retaining my dads pride and building false ego for himself.

Much of trouble he is in today, one of the reasons could be this.

As I reached home last night, I was told that there is no fodder for the cattle. As I am trying to keep my brother away from making these mistakes no more. I asked the keepers to ask my dad what he plans to do about it. I was told he does not care.
So today I packed them off to our farm where greens are abundant. They will get their food but my dad would not have the pride to show anymore. More over in a few months time at least 10 of them would be sold off and a bare minimum kept for some fresh milk and some for left over pride.

The point is, this is not just my families’ story. It’s every land owner’s story, who is trapped in this false social warp.
Not every bullet fired misses the target.