Holy Cow!

            It’s too easy, I know, but I had to make the joke at some point...

Indians, as you may have heard, consider the cow a holy creature, which makes sense because cows are vitally important food sources.  No one eats them, but they produce milk and dung, plow the fields, and do other vitally important things, I’m sure.  One of the theories I have heard to explain their sanctity is that certain species of psychoactive fungus grow very well in cow dung, and the people who consumed these magical mushrooms started worshipping the cow in a moment of inspiration.  In any case, to this day and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, cows roam the streets of India with a sense of entitlement and impunity.  I think in some of India’s other big metropolises cows are becoming more and more scarce, but at least in Bangalore, the famous cow traffic jam stories are true.  The neighborhood menagerie consisting of a few familiar stray dogs, a large healthy rat, and a terrified cat, would not be complete without this achingly cute calf that makes daily visits to the house across the street to get scraps and scare the children.

How the cow’s sacred status has affected its evolutionary development is unclear, but I suspect that cows in India may just be the stupidest bovines on the planet.  With no real threat to their survival (even India’s most menacing predator, traffic, will defer to the cow), the Everyday, Indian Urban Cow (from now on referred to as a EIUC, pronounced “yuck”) has become a swaggering, professional beggar.  Actually, in that sense, EIUCs are not that stupid because it can be difficult to fill seven stomachs when many, many people in India have a hard time filling just one.  Nevertheless, they are not potty-trained nor do they look both ways when they cross the street like the dogs do, so we are not really talking about Einsteins of the animal kingdom or anything.  They're an udder disaster!

Oh, and did you know that when a cow gets old in India it is put onto a train and sent to Bangladesh where there is a large, hungry Muslim population demanding cheap beef?  I don’t know how that fits in with the whole “do-not-harm-cows” rule, but I suppose ruminant nursing homes would be impractical.

            This past weekend, my group of expat friends and I headed south to the fertile fields of Tamil Nadu where the annual harvest festival was taking place.  Every year, about six months or so after the monsoon, people across India celebrate the harvest.  The festival has many different forms, but in Tamil Nadu, it is known as Pongal and lasts for about four days, each day involving different ceremonies; for more information I refer you to Wikipedia. Wiki: Pongal.

            We traveled to Madurai, a temple town in the heartland of Tamil Nadu about 200 miles south of Bangalore.  Besides having a tremendous temple dedicated to Shiva and Parvati, this small city was rumored to host some of the most lavish Pongal festivities in the area, but as is often the case, my information was faulty and it was in the surrounding towns where most of the action took place, which unfortunately meant that most, but not all!, Pongal-related activities were beyond our reach.  Despite the lack of excitement within Madurai, I liked the city.  The memory of sitting inside the Sri Meenakshi Temple in the cool evening darkness, enjoying the quiet and calm of the complex, gazing at the moon, getting bitten by mosquitoes, and having relaxed conversation with a few temple tour guides, will stick with me for a long time.  The setting reminded me a little of an Italian piazza late at night when the heat and crowds of the day have dispersed: an empty, echoing square and a moon-shadow cast by the square’s church.

Is that a temple back there? Yup!

Each statue represents something, but I'll save a complete analysis for another post... joking

Telling secrets to Shiva in bull form

One of the unifying themes of Pongal is the cow whose work over the course of the growing season is honored and celebrated.  On the first day of Pongal, cows are ritualistically fed a sweet rice concoction (also called Pongal) and adorned with bright powders and garlands of flowers.  The event that our group was really excited to see occurs later in the festival and also involves cows.  Known as jallikattu, the event bears some similarity to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, except in India the bulls aren’t chasing you – you are chasing them.  Every year, many people get seriously injured trying to "tame" one of these bulls, and inevitably there are several deaths, which is not too surprising considering that before letting the bulls loose in the crowds, the owners sharpen their horns, get them good and drunk, and stick chili powder up their noses to royally piss them off.  The event was recently banned by the Indian government because it involved “animal rights” abuses.  Though it can’t be pleasant to have chili powder up your nose nor is it very nice to have a bunch of people try to tackle you, perhaps this ban was repealed because the event seemed to be more of a humanitarian issue than an animal rights one.  Please take a look at the below video to see what I mean. (NOTE: If you don’t like blood, please skip the section from about 2:45-3:15.)

This video was all that was needed to convince five of my friends to make the nine-hour bus journey to Madurai with me.  Though none of us were particularly keen on participating in the spectacle, we sure wanted to see it, and so it was a big disappointment when I discovered that my information was again faulty, and that the largest, most violent version of Jallikattu would be occurring on Monday when we would already be back in Bangalore.  Fortunately, a smaller event at the town of Palamedu was planned for Sunday, and thither we hastened.

Two village children.
Their faces' yellow hue is not due to jaundice, but rather is the residue of their daily tumeric powder facial,
which helps soften the skin and prevent hair from growing... and turns your skin yellow.

The scene that greeted us seemed to be straight out of the movies.  The crowded town was in full festival mode, and rows of rickety, over-burdened stands had been erected around the bull pen/pit-of-doom.  We bargained our way onto one of the stands where my height advantage over most Indians once again paid-off, affording me a relatively unobstructed view of the action below.  I’ve posted a video and a few photos taken from our vantage point that gives you an idea of what went down.

And the mayhem begins

It was a little crowded up there

            What’s going on you might wonder?  It’s still unclear to me, but I think, at heart, the event is a competition between the guys in orange and the owner of the bull.  If one of those crazy orange guys gets hold of a bull for a certain period of time, he is awarded some sort of prize, such as a fan, a bicycle, or a piece of cookware.  If, on the other hand, the bull makes it through the scrum of orange without being caught, then the owner of the bull is awarded the prize.  The guys in white sitting above the bull’s entrance were the judges. 

Which is more scary: the imminent arrival of the bull or that menacing fan?

The bull

The day was also notable for a probable appearance on StarNews, one of India’s national news networks.  A reporter curious to get a foreign-perspective interviewed us, and so it is quite possible that the mug of yours-truly was flashed on televisions across India.  As we were leaving, having succumbed to the heat and the crowds, we were asked to participate in a second interview, this time for a documentary about the festival.

A truly terrible popsicle containing, no kidding, vermicelli!
I had already finished mine because I was too polite not to eat it...

The second interview

After returning to Madurai and spending the afternoon recovering from the morning's excitement, we hopped on a night bus to return to Bangalore.  Another tough Monday, but it was definitely worth it. 

Since the trip, we've discovered that Palamedu wasn't the jolly holiday we felt it to be.  For the sake of the bulls, PETA has launched a campaign to ban or fundamentally alter the festival.  I agree that the bulls are mistreated, but they aren't dying as happens in bullfights for example.  The bulls scatter everyone with such ease that the people may as well be flies.  And they end up squashing them just like flies too.  Please consider the following article: One Killed, 68 Injured at jallikattu.  Every year people die in Pamplona as well.  Why do festivals like this exist all over the world?  Why do people participate in them?  Does preservation of tradition justify the continuation of these festivals?  Would a government ban on jallikattu be an infringement on one's right to choose how they want to live?  Complicated questions...  In any case, I'm glad I had the privilege of seeing jallikattu before it is too late.

Newsflash:  Riots in Bangalore today!  I've been at home all morning, but I can only imagine what it is like outside.  Karnataka 'bandh' turns violent