Malgudi days- Jersey cow and local cow at home

We had a Jersey cow at our home in Venkitangu during my toddler and primary school days. We used to call it Chalakudi maadu ( she was brought from my aunt's place at Chalakudi when she was an year old ). She was a dwarf among Jerseys but the milk yield was excellent.  Though I grew up with her, she would not let me go anywhere near here. I used to feed her banana peels and jackfruit "jackets". She would pluck the eatable from from my extended hand and try to gore me in one action. She had sharp forward curled horns which could really pierce through objects. On the few occasions the upper side of her tongue rubbed against the back of my palm while she "plucked", it felt like rough sandpaper ! She was a friend only of my grandma and grandpa, that too only after a tug of war every time when led out from the cowshed. 

The milk yield was good. Grandma used to sell milk, butter milk and ghee. I used to steal small quantities of butter which used to be made into a ball floated in butter milk to be converted into ghee every three days. I used to plunge a couple of fingers into the ball of butter and suck my fingers on the rare occasions when kitchen was left unguarded. Grandma used to scold me and in due course, I realised the indentation marks of my fingers was how she "deciphered" my stealing. I started to wipe out the indentation after "the plunge" and never got caught after "the process modification".

The Chalakudi maadu was our companion for long. It gave birth to five calves before we sold it. My grandma used tong  for a "daughter" ( pasu kutti ) at every calving only to be disappointed with the gift of a "son" ( moori kutti ) every time. We used to look after the calf well till the milching cycle got over. By then calf would have grown into a  teenager with stubs of horns. We used to sell the guy once the cow milching cycle stopped. The teenagers used to land up under ploughs or hauling carts.

"Chalakudi maadu"used to create a lot of tension during calving. The whole womb sack used to come out and a local cow specialist Rukmani amma ( her daughter Kanakam was my classmate ) used to struggle to extract the calf and push the rest of the stuff back into her abdominal cavity. We used to be tense until the whole exercise was over. I have cried on the first couple of calving  taking occasional glimpses of the cow and Rukmani amma struggled through calving.

Unable to withstand the tension during calving, grandma decided to sell the cow after five calving / milking cycle though she was good enough to mother a few more. We switched to a country calf which grew into a country cow whose feed generally went to make the horns long and menacing with very little nutrition reaching the rear end resulting in poor milk yield from the first calving itself. Of course she tried to compensate with lot  more of "cow shit" and urine but of little economic value

We used to name the calves - kunjan, Ramu etc ! The first ten days after calving, the milk was only for the calf. Since the milk produced was much beyond the drinking capacity of calf, grandma used to milch the cow and throw away the waterish appearing milk. I used to run after the young calf .It was impossible to keep pace with it. The calf would suddenly stop and change directions in jiffy like autorickshaws and run away. Its tail used to stand vertical in the first few days.

I shifted to Chennai in the " middle" of middle school. We used to buy cow's milk. The cow herder used to bring  the cow to our street and used to milch the cow under our watchful eyes. The cow seemed to have a water tank inside it and the milk was always "watery". The cow herder would not tolerate a "son" calf . He would starve it to death within a few days of calving. He used to come with a "calf putla" and used to rub it "affectionately" against the udder trying to cheat the cow to yield milk. The cow would be stubborn and unyielding for a some days but it used to lose its will power in due course and started treating "calf putla" with affection. The period until the cow fell affectionate towards "calf putla" was tough for the cow and us. We had to do with more watery milk brought by the cow herder from else where.

The first time I saw the cow herder trying to cheat the cow with "calf putla" , it was a unbelievable sight for me. I  complained to my mom for a few days. Then like the cow, I also got used to the charade and stopped bothering.