Month: June 2017

Kobe,Moori & Pothan : A long short story

by Sreejith KaimalSocialLeave a Comment on Kobe,Moori & Pothan : A long short story
This is an attempt to create a write up that would find its place midway between fiction & non-fiction. There are no cultural or religious intentions behind this article. I only attempt to present facts that I have collected from various sources. Mostly I want to see if I can spin the yarn..

This is the story of two bulls, Kobe & Moori.

Kobe is the glorious descendant of the much valued Tajima-gyu breed from Japan. Kobe was born to a wagyu cow in a very homely farm where life happened in perfect harmony with nature. His country is considered to be one of the most progressive ones in the world, in-spite of being in a geographically challenged location. The farm was the home for some glorious ancestors that had left him the legacy of a well bred genetic strain, for the same reason he was smart strong & very good looking. The calf’s were allowed to drink enough milk from their mothers until a certain age after which they naturally moved to isolation. They were provided healthy green food, most importantly they were given enough love,care and pampering to grow. Kobe knows that he would be sent to the butchery in next 5 years, but his people would allow him to live as a king until then.
If given an option, he still would have preferred to be born to a French couple from the famous Blonde D’Aquitaine breed. He had heard tales from his parents about how that breed of cattle were kept stress free, listened to music and most importantly had the privilege of hearing his human keepers tell stories to them for hours. He had been told that humans paid a great fortune to get their hands on a slice of their body, it was considered to be a great honor to be on a wealthy man’s plate.
However meaningful, Kobe’s life was not that eventful. He had heard stories about bulls who fought many humans in a arena, sometimes tossing them up in the air. It was their best encounter with the two legged creatures. The humans were notoriously famous for using some sharp tools to make the bull bleed; it skewed the fight, yet the victory was for the bull because they knew that human’s feared them and the game was to get over their weakness. He used to hear jokes about how humans would take the privates of the fallen bull and consume it with great appreciation hoping to Man-Up more, it was a rare delicacy known as Rocky Mountain oysters. He hoped to have an ending that said “I had the balls to make a Man out of a HuMan”, he was told that animal’s had many smaller graves that were kept in places that were called super markets, always had nice pictures and details about them which allowed the humans to precisely track details about where they came from. Kobe lived in a very peaceful setting, he had good healthcare & enjoyed personal attention from his fellow humans. Death for him was never horrifying, he was always motivated by the idea of fulfilling human culinary desire of enjoying an enriching meat menu. That was the least he could do for all the special treatment humans give him. He knew exactly when he would be asked to leave, for him life would happen after he was gone. He was a walking fortune for his owners, so he had all the pride to keep his head high. This however is not Kobe’s story.

Moori on the same side of the globe was born to a Sindhi cow breed. Although he was a descendant of a much richer ancestral heritage, he was born in an Industrial Age to a family that depended on agriculture for their economical needs. As told by his mother, Moori had 4 other siblings in previous years out of which the bull calf’s were repeatedly sent off in their early age by his owner, he only hoped that they are still alive.  His female siblings were allowed to stay on the farm, eventually they aspired to be producing good milk for the humans. He was very confused about why humans did the exact opposite of this with their own offsprings. Moori’s mother had been in the farm for close to 8 years, having taken care of his 4 siblings made her weak and hence she gave less milk every year. Moori used to have only half the share of his mother’s milk, rest was the owners share that he used to sell to his customers. His mother used to take him along for grazing, even though most of it was dry hay; some days were eventful when they had corn stem and tree leaves to chew on. He still remembers the day when he had a few banana peel and how that flavored his rumen for a whole day. She used to tell him stories about how there were Greenlands in the places where humans have now built tall buildings, about her childhood when they used to eat fresh cold cut grass from the farms that had the taste of fresh morning dew. There were good times when humans used to have them as companions for festivities & celebration. Moori’s father was a sporty bull who used to work with a plough all day. Some days he would ride the human family on the bullock cart to long distances. The humans were so compassionate & thankful then. The world changed, machines took over and eventually his father was sent to some other place from where he never returned. There were rumors that old bulls always ended up in a place called a butcher shop where they would be cut to pieces and distributed among humans.
He was stressed out that his mother might someday end up in a butchery even after 8 years of continuous hard work. He was wondering if the humans he worked for would ever realize the respectful relation their ancestors had with his. While he had no schooling, he was always held back by the genetic wisdom of not trying to kill humans. His life was quite helpless, especially with the strength that he had and yet not being able to use it to protect his family. Some days he would just weep and pray that all this gets over soon.
One fine day, Moori decided to set on a journey. He thought that his uncertain life should always end by his choice. He knew that he had to anyway die in the hands of a confused human, he might as well see the world from his eyes. He cut his rope, drank all the milk he could from his mother and bid a sad farewell to her. His mother told him that humans were always in search of something called knowledge and only that can save his life. He had observed how the human kids would carry some heavy luggage from places called schools, he knew that knowledge was something you carry on your back and it hurts like hell. He was a bull, he thought if his father could carry humans on his back then he could certainly bear the weight of knowledge. Yet school was place where they were expected to learn all the great things in life. It was highly likely that the school would have all the answers. A stray bull in his land was never seen with suspicion, especially if it was minding its own business. He only had to pretend that someone owned him. He wandered into a school bubbling with activity, he stood close to a group of kids that were making synchronous noises. When he observed closely, they were busy chanting about why Mary had a lamb and importance of wondering what stars are. He was not sure why they would keep all this as a suspense. He observed & only concluded that school was a place where you confuse a human so much that they try to get out of that place every year. With this, he had no hopes of knowing why humans wanted to cut & distribute animals. He would rather be talking to animals as the school had no information about all the mysteries of nature and its co-existences.
He wandered further from the village into a swamp land and saw a bunch of water-buffaloes sitting in a puddle. He was curious about the uniqueness of their color. He had observed that cows & bulls come in a variety of colors. The brownish red ones from his clan used to boast about their superior red-sindhi lineage and zebu patriarch’s. He was quite obnoxious when they spoke about the color of the leather on their bodies, especially when the end game of that was to be on a human’s foot or to hold the piece of cloth that hid the lower portions of their body. He wondered why humans were so shameful & pretentious creatures.
As he approached the swamp, he saw that the buffaloes welcome’d him by clearing some space in the puddle. He gently slid into the mushy gooey richness of the mud. He had seen some human females in the family smear some mud on their faces hoping to look more beautiful, he was still wondering why the buffaloes never got fairer.
He found a huge old buffalo sitting calm next to a patch of green grass near the puddle. He was still a million questions and wanted to strike a conversation with the old man. He quietly slid next to him and cleared his throat, he said ‘Hello Sir, I am Moori’ I am a white Sindhi bull from an agricultural land. He narrated his story about why he had to leave his mother in search of answers.
The old man did not budge, he kept chewing his cud. Moori knew that buffaloes are lazy creatures, humans would compare other humans with buffaloes to use it as a form of supreme insult; which meant extreme levels of thick skinned laziness.
After a few attempts, the old man spoke. He said, my name is Pothan and I am 40 years old. He said, he had all the answers to Moori’s questions, but he was not sure if Moori would live that long to know all of it.
He wanted to give the details rather quickly, but being a buffalo was not an ordinary business. Their timeline was on the slower axis, life was all about relaxing & eating. The water buffalo’s were famous for following a very strict time table with only 3 things to do.
He started with some facts he said, there are over 100 Million of my kind in this land. We are domesticated for our thick milk with higher fat content. He said that humans make a good earning by selling their milk, sometime even adding a little water would still won’t make a difference. He held his head high with pride as he said, we animals never cheat !
As he gave more details about their lifecycle, Moori’s expression changed to that of watching a horror movie. He said that most of the bull’s were sent to the butchery at an age of 3-4 years based on their size and growth. The best part of their life was that they were blessed with a lower intellect and hence it never bothered them with a lot of questions. Life was quite simple, if they woke up that day alive then the whole day was for them to party. If they did not, they were called ‘carabeef’ that served a higher purpose. Their body was perfectly adapted to hot swamp weather, which no other domestic breed would dare to flourish.

He said: listen carefully Moori, I might have an idea for your survival.

to be continued …

 

http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/most-expensive-meat/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India

Japanese Article on Tajima Cows

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An Old Memory ..

by Sreejith KaimalPersonal1 Comment on An Old Memory ..

A snapshot of a vacation memory

It must have been a blessing to be born in the most geographically beautiful region of south India that’s more popularly known as “God’s own country”. However, to be cursed to leave the land looking for economic growth & employment elsewhere. I blame a few social factors for this, partially on the much-abused political theory also known as “Communism” which caused a development havoc kept the state from any kind of industrial revolution. The only business that survived in Kerala was tourism, religion and politics. Eventually Kerala is now a consumer state, Malayalee’s migrated to Gulf and every other damn place on the globe. However, the money kept flowing in for a variety of reasons : for no one could comfortably live there long, but it was and will be the best place to end your life – peacefully. I must say that it’s still today a very soothing vacation spot for many. It’s the only place on the planet that welcomes everyone equally and eventually shuts the door on you if you stay too long. Personally for me, it’s my favorite village that has stayed away from any cultural degradation & consumerism.

May 1991, Summer vacations: The Long Haul

We stayed about 1500 miles away from home and summer vacations was the only way to get away from the regular grind. It would take about 6 months of financial planning to pull off something large like this. About 25 years back if a middle-class man had to travel such a distance, it would take about 3 days of Railroad journey with a lot of careful planning. We carried home-cooked food, potable water and a lot of luggage. The railroad system had hubs from where passengers could take connecting trains. We changed trains in a central hub in South India which was Chennai. We were in Chennai on 20th May, as it turns out all the trains were full. The desperation of reaching our destination after a long journey made us board an open seating Unreserved compartment. An unreserved train compartment was symbolic of the organized chaos in the society. Yet when I look back, I remember that people were more kind then. As a child, I would find place in a kind person’s lap. Get to share their food and sometimes hear some nice stories, the whole world was a Disneyland without tickets.

As we reached our destination, we found there is a nationwide curfew as one of the most influential leader “Rajiv Gandhi” was assassinated in Chennai. It was the start of some worse times to travel, we were lucky to almost reach our destination. Personally, I was happy because I found that our vacations just got extended by a month.

Grandma’s Home

My paternal home is one of the places that has been very close to my heart, even though it was the place where I have seen some disappointing things happen in a family. It certainly is symbolic of the beauty of destruction that paves way for new creation to happen naturally. My grandfather was an army man, one of the most respected man in the village who had seen the world change from war to peace. However, he left us all early with a jolt that left a dent on the family’s affluence meter. The prior generation never saw a need to think about economy, there was no desperate need for savings and the kids barely saw any need to carry money.
Whatever it was then, it was the best I could ask for. I was the first child in the house and the only one who has known my Grandpa so close. I certainly had the undivided love,attention and pampering from everyone.

With whatever resources were available, I saw a perfectly self-sustainable model for peaceful living. The house was surrounded by about 2 acres of farm land. There were a variety of trees, plants and plantations surrounding the house that grew with minimal attention. There were enough vegetables around the house to support a large joint family for days. Additional farming was done to build contingency stocks for months that did not rain or had floods. Shopping for vegetables was so rare that we used to call the purchased vegetables as ‘English’ vegetables. Nature was abundant, but sometimes used to touch us in its own ways. I remember once in severe draught we cut open a papaya tree and to our surprise, it had few buckets of good water stored inside its trunk. The nature around was so resourceful in so many ways. Each season marked a specific morning activity, for example the summer season was for the mangoes to ripen and a morning walk would get us a basket full of naturally ripened sweet mangoes that could go on to the fruit collection for the day. It was helpful because a full grown mango tree would be close to 50 meters tall, even then a fruit would survive the fall as it falls on the soft grass bed and a damp soil cushion. As kids, we used to pick the fruit with that soil sticking onto it, just gently wash it and it was ready for consumption. Today I can’t let the kids eat the skin of any fruit for all the chemicals & pesticides are impossible to wash off.  Many plantations in the world make  a conscious attempt to keep the mango trees short for the need to spray chemicals & harvest them more carefully, as the mangoes are sold when they are not ripe. Why do we have to eat such fruits?

A typical village day

A typical day would start at about 5:30AM with my aunt walking over to the cattle shed to milk the cows. The chill morning breeze would bring the scent of fresh jasmine flowers from the garden that was barely maintained by the kids in the house. The garden would simply grow enough flowers to decorate the whole house, yet we would never take them off the plants unless there was a need to do so.

The cattle shed would always be clean. A slow smoking coconut shell with some spices & herbs would keep the bugs away, the scent of which would have filled the shed with a warm feeling of walking into a coffee shop. Those days, milking a cow was a much more engaging process. We had only two cows and each of them was uniquely named, my aunt would exchange casual pleasantries with them by calling them out. It was a magic to see those cows got up and prepared themselves to be milked, never ever showed any sign of laziness or discontent.  The process had some intense exchange of consent between the creature & person who milked the cow. The quality of milk represented the positivism of the entire exercise. Hence, milking was a specializedskill that only certain people could handle. The cow always rejected unknown people and if there was an unauthorized attempt to access, it alw

ays ended with a kick on the person’s face or chest. If there was a calf, there was a conscious attempt to leave enough for the baby to drink.Freshly extracted milk was naturally warm and the cats in the house would patiently wait outside the cattle shed for the process to be completed, then they would follow all the way to the kitchen to get a share. The cats would gently rub themselves to the person handling the milk can to establish proximity, each minute the purr would intensify and any sign of delay would mean that they are ready to protest. The rest of the day events came in succession to generate valuable resources that kept the big family going.

 

Top Notch Self-Sustenance model

At lunch time, a family member would go in the garden to cut fresh Banana leaves on which hot food was served. Today it’s a proven fact that banana leaves have tremendous health benefits including valuable antioxidants. The food that was prepared from locally grown vegetables would be supporting all living things in the same family, there are never leftovers and always right amount of food is cooked.

Food is served for the animals is outside the kitchen, most of the homes have a deep vessel was placed outside the house for this purpose. We had one that was carved out of stone which served as the feeding spot for the cows. Every day the stone vessel was scrubbed and cleaned. All the residual food like banana peels, vegetables shells, leftover rice & cereals would go into that vessel. Since rice was the staple food, every day we used to have a few liters of hot rice water that was added to the stone vessel, today its sold in a variety of ways. Some animal feed was added to the hot rice water to make the magic concoction that was full of nutrition and yet economical. If that soup was tasty, the animal would let out a couple of moo sounds thanking the preparer.

The cows were let to graze in open and wild, we had a dog who would watch over the cows to see if there were snakes or wild animals that came wandering around. There were a dozen chickens who came down from the high-rise chicken coop to hunt for their own food, sometimes the kids in the house would feed them with grains, they used to simply throw a handful of grains outside and the chickens would uniquely identify a grain of rice or wheat among the million gravels in the ground with ease. Every day the kids in the house had a thousand things to watch, observe and experience.

The word cattle was derived from the French word “Chattel” which means property. There are a variety of social, economic and religious reasons that a Cattle should be protected. The best possible solution is to consider them holy, for humans choose not to destroy something only if it’s believed to be owned by a higher power. Apart from all the research study that shows that the milk production is increased when you name a cow and treat her as an individual, there are mystic powers that a cow posses. If there is a sorrow or death in the family, the cow knows and weeps for it. If there is a celebration in the house, they adjust themselves according to the schedule.

Well this was a mixed blog, in coming days I will expand into each section to make it more cloudy to read. If you have reached so far, I would like to express my heart felt gratitude for reading my blog. Thank you & see you again.

References

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-cows

www.dairymoos.com/interesting-facts-about-cows

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The child who taught me economics

by Sreejith KaimalPersonal2 Comments on The child who taught me economics

I got my first job as a Programmer Analyst Trainee for Cognizant Technology Solutions in 2003, it was the time when Indian IT was trying to fight the recession phase. The Y2K which brought a big boost to the IT industry caused an explosion of offshore companies, then there were layoff’s and slowdown with people scrambling to fix things. I was one of the lucky graduate who got a campus placement. I must say that Cognizant had maintained a very good standard for recruiting, hiring & training. The initial training session was hectic, but then we were randomly placed in projects. That also meant that life was much less busy, we were the junior most employees in the company and we had the liberty to be playful & happy. It took an year for us to move into billable projects, when I joined a project I must say that I had the most young & enthusiastic team in the Insurance account.
Going to office was a joy, we had helpful and kind people all over the place. With that setting, we always had a very enriching start to an IT career.
We do measure happiness & success using a different yardstick at every phase of life. Even though my pay-slip looked like a grocery bill, it was enough to have a decent life in a metro. Work was all about doing the best out of all the small things we knew & the team bonding that it brought. While, we had different roles in the team there was no one who was pretentiously superior or inferior in the organization. Team would easily coordinate frequent team outings, typically an excursion model where we could take a day off and be gone for a 3 day long weekend.
This is an experience from one such team outing.

One of those times where life gives you a good solid reality check.
We had made plans to visit Kodaikanal – a hill station in Tamil Nadu, more popularly known as ‘Princess of Hill Stations’.
The overall expense for the trip was close to INR 1500, out of which about 60% was for the travel & stay. There were not too many avenues to spend money. Selfie was not invented then, cell phones were communication devices with no camera. We had plenty of trekking & sightseeing to do, my digital point & shoot camera with about 512Mb of storage was enough.

Beautiful Kodai
It was the second day of the trip when we were trying to explore places around the Dolphin nose. The place was full of pear trees covered with fruits. We wandered off track following a water stream. The water was crystal clear and we could see some colorful fish swimming in that. After about a mile, we hit a dead end with a rock blocking our way. We thought that it would be a good point to return, just then we saw a bunch of kids running around that place. One of those kids came to us and asked if we wanted to see a special spot, the world was still a reliable place during that time; we followed him . It was great fun jumping across rocks and trying to catch up with the agility of those kids who are a native of that place. They led us to a small pond that was surrounded by huge rocks, the place was not less than any mystical wonderland with crystal clear water flowing under a cave with nice colorful stones in the water. After spending some time there, we took a few pictures and we started to head back. Me & my friend were casually talking to these kids. One of them was supposedly the most enthusiastic in the group, his name was Ramkumar. He was 7 years old, a 2nd grade govt school student. He told us a lot of things about the life of the people on the beautiful hill. How they were totally cut off from the city, how they lived in complete harmony with nature and that he would some day travel outside this place to see what is there in the outer world.
While parting our ways, we wanted to give a little something for the kids. Usually buying a few candy would help, there were no shops around so we decided to give some money. We did not carry a lot of cash as the tour expenses had been paid off and we had some change for minor purchases.

Life through a Child’s eye

We searched and got out all the small denomination currency that was in our pocket, it came close to 35 Rupees. We gave the 3 smaller kids 5 rupee each and we gave Ramkumar 20 Rupees. He was filled with Joy as he saw the money. We thanked him for his guidance and wished him good luck. Just while leaving we shamefully asked if the money would be enough for him to buy some chocolates or toys. Kodaikanal has some of the best home-made chocolates that I have tasted. They have some exotic flavors like Rum Raisin, fruit & nut etc. We were wondering what flavors would he buy. His answer was quite touching.
He told us that first thing he would do is to take this & run to his Mom to handover the money. We felt that as a responsible act, yet we wanted to enquire if there is anything beyond that transaction. He told us that the household expenses was managed by his mother & executed by him. They were a family of 4 living on the hill in a small house. His dad had no job and he would leave the house in search of any temporary work, most of the days he would return with no money but would get some grocery for minor help he would have done at the market. As they were below poverty line, the government would pay them approx. 25 Rupees per week. He said that out of that 25, they would buy only rice, oil and condiments from the market. The subsidized rice would cost them about 4-5Rs a Kilo. They would manage with a little over 3Kg of rice a week. They had no way to stock rice and so they would send the kid to get the weekly supply. His job was to take the money & do the purchases. Most of the time it was a running credit with a rotational limit of 50Rupees or so.Since it was the lifeline for the family, never ever would he make a mistake or lose the supply. Most of his math knowledge was from these fractional transactions that he was involved in. I was surprised that at this age he knew the full details on how his mother was making ends meet.
Most of the vegetables that they grew was from the tiny garden next to the house. While the hilltop soil is very fertile, there are only specific vegetables that can be grown. If there was nothing available for the day, they would just crush a chilly with onion & salt – use that as the side.
Apart from all these hardship, the family was doing good. The kid was going to school, he had dreams to see a better food menu on the table. Make a short travel to nearest town and most important to get his family out of some financial struggle. All this at the tender age of 7 years. So in his eyes, the 20 Rupees had shot up the family’s current week income to almost twofold. Which meant that more rice and the possibly some extra vegetables too.
It is during such instances that the whole world around you starts to make no sense, there are millions of such families that can only dream of having a decent meal on the table and then there are places that waste so much food. Is it true that hell and heaven exist right here ? Possibly one would earn, spend & over-eat to slowly die of meaningless diseases in hell or be in  heavenly side to understand the true purpose of life as it unfolds into something beautiful.

It has been 12 years now and this kid would be a grown up man, not sure if I can meet him. But I would not be shocked to see if he grew up to be a smart educated man walking sucessfully towards his goals.

I went back to work with this incident in my head, for the next many weeks it was difficult for me to go to a restaurant and order some food, the calculations were totally off the charts. The family that I had met had no phone, no email or no postal address. Till date, when I am in trouble I do remember this kid and think about ‘what could go worse?’ there must be a hill out there somewhere on which I can build a small house and live. The economy is the GMO carrot tied to the tail of the human donkey.

The medicine industry is catching up in numbers with food industry and that looks like a symbiotic relationship between two economies. While the poor deal with nutrition issues, the affluent nations are facing diseases caused due to over eating. There was a time when having diabetes and pressure was a symbol of being well to do in the society. We pay huge amounts of money to consume food that has zero nutritional value and then pay more for the healthcare.

God only knows if this is what ‘Kalyuga’ was meant to be or the worse is yet to come…

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