I was feeding a cow standing by the roadside. As I did so, I patted her head, and mouthed sweet-nothings. She kept her eyes closed while chewing, but kept nodding as if she agreed with whatever I had to say. Both of us- the mother and the son, the Gau and her Bhakt – were in the state of divine bliss.

A passerby must not have liked what he saw, and approached us with menacingly. He began berating me for being a cow-worshipper, and derided me as a gaumutra drinker.

“My pleasure”,I told him, “I was proud to be one”. In fact, I considered cow dung to be holy too, and placed deep reverence in everything cow-ish. He abused me for quite a while, labelled me an ignorant fool, a qafir, filthy, pagan and what not. I didn’t mind in the least, neither did the cow. Except when he called me a Hindoo, and made it sound like an invective.

She kept chewing the cud. I kept on smiling. “You shall go to hell”, he cursed me. “You are already in hell, bereft of  love, not just for the gaumata, but for any living thing”, I replied. He called my mother and sister choicest of names, I paid thanks. He kept up the barrage, questioned my faith and common sense. He amused me to an extent that I liked him for an instant. Then suddenly, he took out a knife from his pocket, placed it on the cow’s neck, and mimed as if he would slit it.

The man no longer exists.

His story is over.

This story is over too.

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