The cells in the Kathmandu Municipality Security Offices in Teku have non-human inmates. An average of five cows are apprehended every week a week by the municipal moo-squad, and detained in the Kanji House. Eight are currently in custody. Bishow Raj Joshi, a municipal sub-inspector wonders at the figures. "How many people still own cows in this concrete jungle?" he asks. Joshi waxes rather sentimental for someone who spends his days locking up bovine trespassers. "Poor cows," he sighs, "they have only plastic and trash to feed on."
Unlike their human counterparts, imprisoned cows are auctioned, not released on bail or awaiting trial, and fetch around anywhere between Rs 100 and Rs 2,000. The stray cowherds one still encounters on the riverbanks and empty plots are offended that their cows are so ill-used. "What is the harm in keeping cows. It is the government that is bad. See, the city is so polluted, everything is adulterated.
Keeping cows means that at least you can drink pure milk," argues Tulsi Bhetwal from Manamaiju, whose cows graze in the empty fields of Gongabu.
Unlike their rural cousins, city cows enjoy a good deal of freedom, and can make friends in all neighbourhoods. But their social life only ever lasts for short periods-their owners are happy to let them graze their way across town, but only to ensure they are well-fed. Then, they find them and take them back home to milk them for all they're worth. "It's better to let a cow feed freely when it is not giving milk. And keeping them at home is too much work for us," explains Bhetwal. Even many temples, like the Radha Krishna Temple in Tangal, keep cows for their rituals propitiating Laxmi.
Bhetwal and others like him don't see what the big deal is if cows walk the streets-after all, they take them back home periodically. But unfortunately, many of our roadblocks from the sometimes mad mammalian kingdom will never be claimed. "After cows age and stop yielding milk, people simply let them loose. They never claim them," says Joshi.
If this is thought to be the case, the four-legged jaywalker is put on a truck and sent out to somewhere between Mugling and Gajuri. Here, it's finders keepers. It is remarkable how affectionate the moo-squad can be-Mahendra Mahato, another municipal sub-cow-buster, almost had his feet crushed by a nasty cow he was trying to put away, and yet, he says, he always tries to find the delinquents a good home. Sometimes, money be damned, his charges simply go to people who swear they will give them a good home.
Bulls, on the other hand, inspire a sort of wary distaste. The Bovine Intelligence Unit says that bulls roaming the streets are either offerings to Shiva and can't be touched, or are no more capable of performing their husbandly duties. "We generally leave them alone" says Mahato, whose expression conveys the disdain his words mask.
Perhaps he should be a little less harsh. Dairy owners around the city admit that they simply abandon male calves sometimes. "We don't need them after their mother stops giving milk. It's a burden to keep a bull," says a dairy worker too ashamed to use his name. "We basically leave them in open areas outside the Valley," he says. The best location they've found so far is on the way to Nagarkot. There's even a mini-mafia that takes them to the beef market in tarai.
The Muluki Ain (civil code) says anyone killing is liable for life imprisonment. It is an unfortunate law, because there are indigenous communities in Nepal whose culture includes eating beef. But to Hindu, the cow's Panchamrit, "five nectars," are sacred-milk, ghee, yoghurt, dung and urine. You have to be comatose to miss the irony of the last two in a city that has such a huge waste management problem.
Perhaps it is time to pray for the health and cleanliness of the city to Kamadhenu, the cow that fulfils all your desires. This Gai Jatra, 5 August, Valley residents can do just that, as they watch an endless stream of cows-and humans dressed as cows-parading across town to ease the journeys of our recently departed across the river to heaven .
Or, we can all take this opportunity to take on our holiest cows and make violent fun of them-on Gai Jatra, it is allowed.
