Here I am going to describe stories of two animals. One of them had been a pet cow and the other had been a she-donkey. I had been witness to both of the stories.
In my childhood a cow had always been a pet animal of our family and my parents and other members of the family always treated the cow as a family member. In my childhood I used to take milk of cow and curd, butter and clarified butter made from cow’s milk. All these products contain less fat as compared to fat contents in the similar products obtained or made from buffalo’s milk. Apart from that, cow’s milk and products made from cow’s milk are light and easy to digest. It is said that pure ghee made from cow’s milk is good for memory. Also several ayurvedic medicines are prepared and given in ghee made from cow’s milk. In some diseases cow’s urine is used as medicine. It was when a manufacturer of medicines presented before me a demonstration for forwarding it to the Government for granting exemption from payment of tax on sale of medicines made of cow’s dung when I knew that cow’s dung is also used in grounding of some medicines. Other wise it is used for besmearing earthen floor of houses, for preparing organic manure and as fuel for cooking food. After cow’s death, her skin is used as leather for many purposes and bones are used as raw material of certain engineering products. Horn and hoofs are used for making toys. But in my family, whenever a cow died its dead body was dead buried with respect more than the respect which is given when a dead body of a person is dead buried.
In my childhood I had seen three generations of a cow in my family. It was unique that before death of first cow and second cow, both gave birth to three calves and thereafter only one heifer (she-calf) and when heifer became fully developed cows died. The story which I am going to sate here relates to third cow and her second calf. The calf was then four months old. One day in the summer we set free the cow and calf for grazing in our fields. Being summer, there were no crops in our fields. Our all agricultural land had been close to our house and we could always see our fields from gate of our house. In summer we could see at a long distance. When cow and her calf had been grazing in the field approximately at a distance of half kilometer, several street dogs came over there and began barking and threatening the cow and the calf. Thereafter, those dogs attacked the calf. The cow, with her horns succeeded in keeping those dogs away from the calf. The dogs tried from various angles but every time the cow turned on that and angle and saved the calf. All this continued for about fifteen minutes but dogs could not do well in catching or biting the calf. But then a stout dog grabbed one leg of the cow and bit on it. My younger brother saw all this except dog biting the cow but he told only about attack by dogs. He told that cow had succeeded in keeping away all dogs and finally they went away. So there was nothing to be worried.
All members of the family continued to use the cow milk and products of her milk. But after 17 days we noticed that cow had gone mad. We took it to veterinary surgeon. The doctor carefully examined the cow and then told us that it had happened because of dog bite. Though the doctor gave the injection yet he suspected the recovery as it had been too late. After 4 days the cow died. We all were sad and my mother wept bitterly remembering that the cow had sacrificed her life while saving her calf. Thereafter, body of dead cow was dead buried in our field with full honours.
Then a new cow was purchased but no member of our family could forget the cow which had sacrificed her life for the safety of her child. This had been pure love and care of a mother for her child.
Second story which I am going to state relates to a she-donkey and her kid. The kid might have been 2-3 months old when the accident occurred. Those days I was posted in a town and was residing in a rental house which was situated in middle of the town on one side of a road near a road crossing. The road led to a sugar mill. It was winter season. So many trucks, carrying sugar cane to sugar mill, used to pass through the road. My residence was situated on first floor of the building and we had a balcony towards road side. On the road side we often had seen cows and sometimes donkeys.
One evening when I was at my home, I heard noise of people. I opened the door in the balcony. I saw that a large number of people had gathered on roadside at a place. Then I asked my peon about the happening. The peon enquired from a person and then he told me that a truck had run over a donkey kid and it had died. After sometime, people left the place. The wounded body of the donkey kid was lying dead and its mother the she-donkey was licking the wounded body of its baby donkey with her tongue. After some time the she-donkey sat near the dead body. I noticed that she had been shading her tears continually. During the night nothing had changed. In the morning I saw that she-donkey was still sitting near the body. Some body had put grass and water in a tub near she-donkey. But it did not take either of those.
Somebody had informed the civic authorities about the dead body of donkey kid lying there. At about 8:00 AM Municipal Board truck came with some labourers. Labourers loaded the dead body on the truck. The helpless she-donkey could do nothing. When the truck was driven away the she-donkey returned to the place where dead body of her kid had been lying. She had been shading tears. She remained there till evening. Next day she again came over there with tears in her eyes and remained there till evening. This happened for three days continuously and she did not leave the place unless she was driven away by neighbouring shopkeepers. The incident moved me genuinely.
Both of the incidents relate to love of animals towards their kids. Sometimes I wonder how some women can afford to leave their children uncared and unloved. Are natural world better than human beings? Are our social associations above our kids?
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