Let us eat grass! Reportedly rich in vitamins- as the cows would vouch for- indeed it is time we made it our staple food. Surely, the bovine creatures would go up in arms, all four, in righteous indignation against us useless, inhuman beings for encroaching upon their territory, literally.
But they can be ignored as they are not entitled to vote, till date and in any case we have been milking them dry all along. At the worst, they may resort to a road roko, but then they are already doing just that, unhindered, on the city roads, day in and day out under the watchful eyes of the Corporation.
It is not difficult to guess the sudden appetite for grass and the new-found wisdom about its nutritive value. If man should change with the times, so should his stomach. If these troubled times warrant the chewing of the cud, then so be it. For all we know, we may even, by a process of Darwinian evolution, turn into cows ourselves and we should have no regrets too.
Frankly, we the prajas are already being treated very much like cattleherds by our elected rajas and any metamorphosis to the tranquil world of the four-legged would only be an overt recognition of this reality. Also, since the sixth sense of which we are so proud of, has already become nonsense, there should be no problem about that too.
Readers, I am sure, must already be feeling that they are growing tails and horns. But make no mistake, blessed are those who are born as cows. They do not have to trek to the nearest vegetable shop, with a bagful of currency to buy just a handful of vegetables. Neither could they deem it necessary to add salt to taste nor are they under any compulsion to cook their food which involves use of mustard oils and such other ingredients which are almost always adulterated.
All they have to do is to make it to the nearest greenery or even a dustbin, dip their head and get to work. And they can do so with gay abandon while we humans are inhibited, both by prestige and tastes, even when the stomachs go empty. The cows have neither, and so their bowels are ever active.
Little wonder that we are forced to go green with envy vis-a-vis the bovine creatures which seem to be in the pink of health, while the hungry Indians slowly slip into the red because of the vegetable blues. God probably heard our prayers wrong when we were seeking redemption for the markets.
Instead of the stock markets, it is the vegetable markets which have turned northwards. One would do well to put his money, if any, in onions, tomatoes and potatoes instead of the shares which rot faster and the fixed deposits which simply disappear. Rather one is sure to make a killing by just getting bullish on potato chips instead of the blue chips, for the former has wonderful fundamentals like potato, oil and salt, the most scarce commodities in these boom times.
The real tragedy is the impending shortage of salt which is sure to herald disastrous consequences. For one, with less or no salt, Indians are going to feel less and less grateful for anything, as salt is linked to one’s sense of gratitude. The other fallout is the total evaporation of shame or remorse as salt is also known to make one rather touchy and sensitive, though there is already a school of thought that claims that sodium chloride has not helped us a wee bit on that count, so far.
There is also a silver lining to the shortage of salt, as the nation can truly trim itself down, quite physically, to the demographers’ delight. Instead of less humans, we will have thinner ones, which in a mathematical sense, means reduction in the size of our population all the same.
As the hungered nation embarks on a forced diet what with prices of essentials like vegetables, fruits and sundry other items space rocketing, the stage is set now for the grand parade of a weak India. The traders and hoarders, the traditional vote-bank of the BJP, aided by an active negligence from their government have ensured that the people of the country go on all fours, hungry and haggard.
And with the addition of salt to the injury, it certainly seems that we Indians have wrought upon ourselves what even a Pakistan has not been able to do in these last fifty years- weakening India. The sad part is that the intensity of the man-made famine is yet to even register with the powers that be beyond being perceived as an election issue. Perhaps, someone should tell them in their own language that if this drought for food continues, there are going to be less and less voters in future.
Maybe that will provoke them into feeding the nation and keeping it at least clinically alive, if not hale and hearty. The week-end statistics, of course, will reveal that the inflation rate has in fact dropped by a few points while the Consumer Price Index will list the prices of the various commodities. Only that those items will be missing from the counters, and India’s menu too.
And that brings us back to the prudence of learning to graze in greener pastures and if possible, even export the surplus to Bangladesh!
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