I Hate Cows

I knew I hated cows one day when, I was probably nine or ten years old, I was playing hide and seek with other children in a farm near Verona and I jumped from what I thought was a hayloft onto another lower hayloft only to fall through the hay and into a chute that fed directly into the dairy with all the cows. There I was sitting on a pile of hay with cows all around me who were looking none too pleased to see me in the midst of their lunch.

I know cows are usually fairly stupid and placid animals ( if you do not count the bulls in Pamplona), but all these different types we have encountered here in India seem to know exactly that THEY are the ones who are running the country.

They are everywhere and they cross the streets, even the highways, any time they damn please getting traffic to grind to a halt when you’re already trying to avoid the cars who do not seem to know how to keep in their lane or to use an indicator. The cows are the Indian equivalent of New York rats, they are a pest, they forage through garbage, they are everywhere…the only difference is that you can easily run over a rat, while with a cow you get the short end of a stick in an accident.

Any journey in a car in India is significantly made longer and more irritating by the presence of these horned, uncaring, ubiquitous, large moving targets. If the Indians choose not to eat them I move for building large temples devoted to them and therefore keep them in enclosures where people can feed them, worship them, whatever….and don’t even get me started on their large dumps….

The Long, Long, Long Road to Jodphur

The morning started with our last game drive at Ranthambore, no tigers this time, but we saw wild boar, antelopes, deer and tons of monkeys. The lack of tiger sighting was also due to the fact that people were allowed to enter the reserve on foot (actually they were all barefoot) for the fourth day after the new moon for the festival of Ganesh. Lots of Indians scampering around the park are not conducive to tigers’ outings.

After leaving, alas not without saying goodbye to our lovely tent, we boarded our minivan, very comfortable, but it was going to be our prison for the next nine hours….
We found out that the Indian style of driving is similar to the one in Naples, basically honk your horn at anything that moves: honk at men, women and children, honk at cows, honk at the ubiquitous not so wild pigs, honk at motorcycles, honk at cows, honk at trucks, honk at cars and, did I mention, honk at cows?

The villages we passed before passing Jaipur where your typical run of the mill, Sunday in any village: the men all out sitting around in bars, the women hardly anywhere to be seen. One interesting thing is though that the Indians refuse to live their lives unadorned , from the fronts of their trucks to the butts of their camels everything is painted, tasseled, bedazzled and even the poorest women in the smallest villages wear the most amazing saris with the most beautiful colors and with nose piercings, bangles on their arms, and beaded, painted, mirrored fabrics.

We finally arrived in Jodhpur in time for a late dinner and our hotel called Raas is absolutely amazing….more to come.

Highlights On the Road to Jodphur

1. Mustard fields as far as the eye can see. Seriously, they must grow the entire world's supply of mustard in Rajasthan. It's bright, practically neon yellow for miles and miles.

2. A camel parked by a gas pump. Two guys were filling up a large gas can resting on a cart being pulled by the camel, but it still appeared as though they were gassing up their camel and it looked amazing. Wish I had been able to snag a photo in time.

3. Wild dogs, eating at a cow carcass. Yummy.

4. "Ramakrishna Women's Teachers' College." [NB: The surname of my friend getting married.]

5. Goats on the highway. On an actual toll road, six lanes across, honest to god highway. And Bobo wonders how it could possible take ten hours to drive 550 km...