Urgently Needed, A Moo Moo Debate With News Anchors

Yesterday, wife handed over the remote to me around 9 pm to listen to headlines, as thereafter I have to give it back to her for obvious reasons. I came across a news channel showing repeatedly a few people in Khaki rounding up cattle. I reckoned that someone must have been eating, carrying, hiding or trading beef. However, to my surprise it was a Police compound in UP where cops had been ordered to round up stray cows and ensure their safety and security.

Thana in-charge reporting to his boss, saab aaj dus cow pakar li (Sir we caught 10 cows). From the other side the orders would be to improve score or else ‘bare daraoga ji naraaz ho jayenge’ (Senior will get annoyed). What else would this chap do other than send all available strength cow catching. In their exuberance they may even bring personal cows of the SP and District Collector, like once when they had gone on a “wild cow chase” for a minister’s buffaloes.

Scene changes back to the TV studio. Someone was discussing that police are not trained to handle cows. I didn’t agree with that argument at all. If police can handle human beings like cattle, I am sure handling cattle for them should be a cake walk of the “cow dung cake” kind.

What about the dung that is now splattered all around the thana? Police have a solution to everything. All those who come to register a complaint can be told to first handle ‘bullshit’ and then only will they be entertained. A time tested method of the police to get things done, ‘Fokat main’.

Will you believe if I say cows carry deadly weapons. Horns are the most dreaded ones. One nudge in the wrong place and you will have an additional hole to air your views from. Hoofs, one kick and you may kick the bucket. Third weapon is the weight of the cow itself. From the clips that were showing I saw people in the ‘pin weight’ and ‘paper weight’ category trying to get hold of a ‘super heavy weight’ cow. Just in case you slip & the dear cow sits on you. The referee will have no choice but to declare you are ‘Chaaron khane chit’.

Imagine the thana in-charge instead of counting Sepoy’s is now more worried about the parade state of cows. I was imagining the sick report being looked after by ‘Dr Dangar’, the fodder havildar, the water constable, gobar gas Sub- Inspector and what have you. Above all the Senior Inspector from the Animal Husbandry Department under the cow Rakshak Mantralaya will come inspecting.

How far can we take it ‘guys’? Whole UP will have only cowboys roaming around desi style. Tobacco most of them chew, the only thing lacking is a pair of jeans and a whip. Roadside Romeos should now be roped in to lasso these ‘stray lasses’. This will keep them under check and provide them an alternate way to admire things of beauty, besides keeping crime at bay.

Be that as it may. Two things struck me, one that while I flicked the complete list of channels which my dish operator provides, I found that the ‘cows had not come home’ on this channel. The “coveted’ discussion continued. Second, do we have just this topic to discuss on national news.

I feel sad when loads of hard earned tax payer’s money will be frittered away by UP government to look after cattle. Who is to be looked after first? Can we get our priorities right?

It was not surprising to see that the villagers had hounded up a lot of stray cattle and locked them in school compounds. Naturally they wanted their cows to be educated well so that they don’t destroy crops in fields. Once these animals graduate from the ‘pathshala’s’ they won’t sit in the middle of roads wasting time and blocking traffic. Eat only from the Lutyen’s Delhi lawns. They will be trained to leave their ‘trademarks’ in ‘sulabhs’ especially designed for them. Educated bulls won’t chase cows on highways and in case caught would be booked under APC (Animal Penal Code) and shoved in Police lockups.

Farmers can leave their real mothers to die but dare he give away a non-milk bearing cow. All those who aim their knives and forks at them would be clobbered to death, as it's easier to execute a man by lynching rather than waiting for courts to give a verdict to send him to the gallows.

When will we in India catch cows and bull by the horns and bring them to the TV studious for a moo-moo debate with the news anchors? I wonder!