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Journalism of Courage
The Conference of the Bovines was in full swing. It was a hastily summoned affair held in the capacious cow-sheds of 1, Anne Marg, Patna. Going by the animated mooing that marked the proceedings it appeared that the participants were in a state of high anxiety. The matter being considered in this session, after the mandatory round of fodder and whey, appeared to be of the utmost urgency. At one point things got so anarchic, that Buffalo Billa, who had convened the meeting in the first place, had to call it to order…
Buffalo Billa (swishing his tail to emphasise his words): Friends, some quiet, please. We realise that all of you are very perturbed, but we will never come up with a resolution unless we moo one at a time.
(His intervention seemed to work. All the delegates hunkered down and took their place around the stable. The first one to speak up, after raising a hoof, was Bittiya, a hunky ox from Madhya Pradesh…)
Bittiya: As you know, my fellow quadrupeds, these are difficult times. Take our recent troubles in Bhopal. Our patron saint, Ma Uma Bharatiji, is being treated so shabbily. Friends, I can’t tell you how this has hurt us…(at this emotional point, there was a tear in every eye around the stable. Bittiya’s fellow delegate from Bhopal, Buntyji, broke in.)
Buntyji: Bittiya is too emotional to continue. So let me tell you what this great lady, nay saint, has done for us poor four-legged creatures. Her record of governance as MP chief minister is truly great. You must have all heard of the hospitals she ran for dying cattle and her orphanages for our motherless, fatherless young. She had passed an order that all calves will be provided with a nutritious midday meal, complete with vitamin enriched bran…
Bubblyji (known to be Buntyji’s shrimati, she was a pretty and frisky Ongole): Buntyji, don’t forget to tell them about Umaji’s Health for All Bovines project. And how she stopped two-legged creatures from inhabiting parts of our cities, so that we four-legged can stroll in peace…
Buffalo Billa (raising an authoritative hoof): Yes, we in Bihar have also heard about the lady’s good works. If she stood for elections here, she may have won some of our votes. But we need to hear voices from other regions too — the delegate from Delhi, Gobarji, has been trying to get a moo in…
Gobarji: (he may not have had the most prepossessing name but there was no denying that he was a city slicker, with his own mobile phone): Yaar, this is too much. Everywhere one looks, any politician who has done some good work for our cause, has been given the short end of the lathi. They treated our Maneka Gandhiji so badly, for example. We must revolt, I say, cattle of India unite, we have nothing to lose but our yokes (he shook his horns so vigorously that the little bell around his neck appeared to ring the death knell of the human species).
Gilli-danda (a yearling from Bihar shook her head in agreement): Look at the way they have treated our poor Rabri Deviji. Such a kind, such a sweet woman we will not find if we search the entire Indo-Gangetic plain. Every day, even when she was CM, she would make it a point to give me a lump of jaggery before going to bed. Now I am told that they have issued an eviction notice for her to quit these premises. What will become of us, where will we go now? Where? (she broke down and lowed so loudly that all the cattle had to rush to her side to comfort her).
Buffalo Billa (after allowing Gilli-danda’s sobs to subside): I think, friends, we need to draft a strong resolution, putting down our concerns and demands. These are some points I have jotted down. If we all are in agreement, we will consider it passed, and we will despatch it to Parliament, which I’m told is currently in stable…
After much cogitation, marked by animated braying (there were a couple of grunts, brays and bleats, too, from the pigs, donkeys and sheep participating as observers), the meeting came up with the following resolution:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is generally considered an enemy.
2: Whatever goes upon four legs is a friend (except mad dogs).
3. We want Uma Bharatji to become chief minister of Bhopal.
4. We want Maneka Gandhiji back as Union Minister of Animal Welfare.
5. We want Rabri Deviji, as Opposition Leader, to remain at 1, Anne Marg.
MEET OUR DEMANDS OR ELSE ALL THE CATTLE OF NORTHERN INDIA WILL JOINTLY BOYCOTT ALL THEIR MILKING, PLOUGHING, AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY RESPONSIBILITIES FROM NEXT WEEK ONWARDS. THE TWO-LEGGED OF NORTH INDIA HAVE BEEN DULY WARNED.
