Being city bred and used to buying milk in packets or bottles, the only time i had seen a cow up close was the Jersey ones my granny had in Kerala. I had no clue about the ways of farm animals least of all cows, nothing had prepared me for a life on the tea estate. Till i had a baby i used to either buy milk from a boy selling milk on the estate or mostly used milk powder as that was a safer option any day, people in India resort to all kinds of practices to increase the milk yield of cows......
When i was in Pune for the delivery of my first child ....my husband kept telling me he would buy a cow, as otherwise it would be difficult with a small baby and preparing nutritious food, which required milk as an ingredient. I kept pleading with him to not buy a cow as i could not imagine looking after one. A senior executive on the estate got posted to Mohokutie Tea Estate as the manager of that estate, and he gifted my husband a cow before he left for Mohokutie T.E....Just before coming to Pune to take baby and me to Assam, we too got posted to Mohokutie Tea.Estate from Digultarang T.E and my husband was to take up the post of factory in-charge at the Mohokutie factory.
I was petrified to think of owing a cow but a bit excited too .... my baby was 9months old and lisping words...he called cows himboos and so we named the cow Himboos ....she was very beautifull and a nut brown in colour and quite thin..... she gave around one liter of milk a day..... and i ensured the grass the gardeners fed her was of good quality. We were in the Digultarang TE for only a few days after reaching Assam, and i was busy packing up the large amount of breakable stuff we had accumulated in the 4 years we were living on tea estates. Once my husband was away in the factory at night as was the usual practice, and there was a thunderstorm looming and soon after the rain started, the cow started to moo and how !!!!!!
I was so scared because i thought that there was something seriously wrong with the cow mooing and thunderstorm happening at the same time. I had heard of how animals react to natural calamities, and was sure something terrible was about to happen ....so i called the watchman and told him to check on Himboos the cow. He had the most bored expression on his face for being made to go out in the rain and that upset me and i thought how callous this man is !!!!!
Assam is a state that has frequent earthquakes and so i was really worried about baby and me and my husband and the estate too ..... The watchman came back and said all is well with the cow, i was also scared of any snakes in the cowshed.....after hearing him, i was still worried and so took my baby in his pram and went and stood in the corner of the room as i was asked to do, in case of an earthquake. I felt a bit foolish after a bit, but stood there till my husband came home. He laughed the whole matter off and thankfully the cow stopped mooing.
This entire episode happened again in Mohokutie and i decided to go and talk to the mangers wife and ask her about a veterinary doctor too. There in the manger's bungalow i met the labour welfare officer's wife who was just leaving as i entered but waited to hear what i had to say...... and all three of us had a hearty laugh ... i, at myself and they both.... at my ignorance.
The cow was mooing because she was on heat and there was no danger of any earthquake or any such jazz, i had never ever dealt with some thing of this sort in the town i grew up in. The amount i laughed that day and from then on every time the cow mooed i would laugh..... but the fall out of keeping a cow is that i went off drinking milk and when ever i drank milk........ i stuck to powder milk .... no emotions on seeing powder milk !!!!!!!!!!! :)
22/4/13
Sadly this story does not have a happy ending, after a few months Himboos gave birth to a female calf and instead of using Himboos, as a cow for providing milk i made her our pet and let the calf drink the milk.Every night i ensured the gardeners did not tie the mother and child separately. Initially in Mohokutie i did let the gardener milk Himboos and we used the milk, but it is so painfull to see a cow being milked that i made them stop the practice all together. Baby Himboos as we named the calf was also a uniform nut brown and very beautifull, i made sure they had the best of grass to eat. Workers coming to the bungalow have to be handled with kid gloves or one could never tell when they would play hookey or just stop coming to work for no rhyme or reason..... so once both the gardeners decided to play hookey, on a day i had given the maids and cook a holiday ...... after a house party where all three had worked extra.
I still remember feeling so scared to go check on Himboos and her baby, i dread snakes and so slowly went to the cowshed and checked on them. I realised to my horror that the grass was over !!!!! oh dear what a tragedy .....i gave them some leftover rice and the peels of vegetables and some bananas.....but i was sure they were hungry and i was so upset as to how to feed the cows grass!!!!! Suddenly i had a Eureka moment .....i decided to tie both mother and daughter in the front lawn !!!!!!!! i knew my husband would burst a blood vessel when he came and saw this ...but i just did not want the cows to start mooing ......leading the cows one at a time from the cowshed to the front lawn was such a brave thing for me to do ....i was never so scared of a pet EVER!!!!! but i somehow managed to tie them to a solid post and let them graze on the lawn.... after my husband came home, he sent word to some workers to get grass and the cows were tied back in the backyard.
In 2003 i realised Himboos needed to be mated and the practice on the estate was to send the cow to one of the staff's cow shed, because he owned a prize bull .....when i first heard of this method of doing things i was so taken aback!!! but i dared not laugh at the gardener telling me this, in a no nonsense manner as the most normal thing to get done....i realsied town folks have no clue about how life in the rural areas is sooooooooo different !!!! The icing on the cake being, one has to pay the staff a sum of Rs 200.... only.... if the cow gets pregnant !!!!! So i sent Himboos to the staff's cow shed for some time and then one fine day, the gardener told me that it was time for me to send Rs 200.... across to the said staff's house.
In January 2004 i left for Pune, for the delivery of my second child and i knew, i would never go back to Assam, as we had filed our papers to emigrate to Canada. I was tired of living with insurgency and wanted to move out of India itself, i was keen on going to New Zealand as i never wanted to set my eyes on another snake, but my husband wanted to go to Canada. I kept reminding the gardener to feed and take care of Himboos and baby Himboos, specially cleaning the cement floor of the cowshed lest she slip on the cow-dung etc. After my husband came for the delivery of my second child and before he went back to Assam, i drilled it into him, to return the pregnant Himboos and her calf to the Manager. He kept saying they would feel bad as Himboos was a gift from them to us, but i said it is better that she go to someone who will take care of her and had the means to do so. The Manager's bungalow had a huge cowshed and they kept quite a few cows, so 2 more would not have added to the burden.
He kept dilly dallying and in the meantime Himboos gave birth to another calf. Every Sunday when he would drive to town to call me in Pune, i would remind him of giving Himboos back, and sadly my worst fears came true..... the gardeners became slack as there was no one to keep a check on them..... and one stormy night my beautifull Himboos slipped on the slippery floor of her cowshed and broke her back ......how much pain the poor thing must have undergone .....how she must have bellowed and mooed in pain .....the vet came and put her to sleep the next day.....both her calves were finally sent to the Manager's bungalow ..... that is the sad ending to the story of my Himboos ......every time i think of her end...... i am moved to tears to think of the pain the poor thing must have endured in her last hours....... and i was not there for her .......
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