Holy Cow

46 THE CHOWPATTY GODDESS

We took to hanging around a cool spot by the Arabian Sea called Chowpatty Beach. I was drawn to it ’cause it sounded like “Cow Patty Beach” to me. It had wide sand vistas and a carnival feeling at night. Shalom achieved a deep brown, Bain de Soleil tan, and said, “Miami Mi-shmami. Who needs Flah-rida?”

Tom learned how to swim. Nowadays, he could fly, he could swim. He said, “I could very well be a duck. I might be a duck trapped in a turkey’s body.” We were sleepy and stupid with sloth.

One sunny afternoon, identical to all the other sunny afternoons, I spotted a herd of loitering Indian cows. My people. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was for bovine company, their feel, their smell, the sound of their lowing. No offense to the pigs and the birds, but there are down-home-feeling things you get from your own kind that are necessary from time to time. I broke into a trot to say hello. “Hello, cows, cows, hello. Greetings and salutations. So good to-”

“Who are you?”

Stopped me in my tracks. Spoken in a tone I had never heard from a cow before, haughty, disdainful, cold-almost human. “My name is Elsie Q,” I said. “I’ve come from America.” None of the cows made any move to greet me or sniff me. “These are my friends Shalom and Tom…”

“We are sacred cows,” the matriarch said. “We are the goddess Prithvi, we are Kamadhenu, we are the source of all that is plentiful, all that is good. The milk for the child, the dung for the crops.”

“Right on,” said Shalom. “Good to meet you, Katmandu. Katnis. Can I call you ‘Kat’?”

“Kamadhenu.”

“Eluhenu.”

“Ka-ma-dhe-nu.”

“You say Kamadhenu, I say Eluhenu. Potayto, potahto, kamadhenu, eluhenu-let’s call the whole thing off.”

Crickets.

“Sheesh, tough crowd.”

I noticed that some of the cows were giggling nonsensically and focused on seemingly mundane things, like a clod of dirt, or their own hoof, or just staring into space and smiling weirdly. They seemed so friendly that Shalom and Tom hopped off my back and went over to hang out with them. I lost track of my fellow travelers for a few moments. That was a mistake.

“What’s so funny?” I asked that group.

“We are the silly cows,” one said, in a lilting accent you usually associate with surfers in California. I guess laid-back beach culture is the same the world over. “What’s up, feathery guy? What’s up, fat pink dude?” A couple of the silly cows became fascinated with Tom’s wattle, that quivery piece of flesh near his neck. Tom was always a little self-conscious of it, thought it made him look fat. “Check out the crazy skin under this dude’s chin-flappa dappa dappa.”

The silly cows started to pull and stroke Tom’s wattle. “Dude, it feels like bumpy rubber. It’s freakin’ me out.” One of those cows offered both Tom and Shalom something to eat that I couldn’t see. It was small and brown, like a lost button. They both gobbled it down. I turned my attention back to the matriarch. She met my eyes impassively.

“Why do you keep company with pigs and birds?” she asked.

“Because they’re my friends.”

“Indian cows only have other Indian cows for friends. We are goddesses. Only we cows are sacred, we cannot stoop to the level of associating with mere animals such as these. You threaten the whole hierarchy with your behavior.”

She was sipping a brightly colored sugary substance through a straw, a small wooden umbrella hanging off the side of her glass, and having her hooves buffed by a little girl. She and some of the other cows had bright metal jewelry around their necks and lovely colored silk sashes tied to them. They looked stunning, like movie stars. But even though the matriarch was my sista from anotha mista, I had taken an instant dislike to her.

“I’m not a goddess, I’m just an animal, we’re all animals, just like the pigs, the birds, just like the humans, for that matter.”

“Heresy!” the matriarch said. There was a lot of consternation and lowing from the rest of the assembled cows. “You endanger our position. If you show the humans that we’re animals, they will begin to treat us like animals, and eat us like animals, the way they do in your godforsaken country.”

“But it’s not right,” I said. “It’s not right and it’s not fair.” I noticed that Shalom had a big poop-eating grin on his face and was staring at his nail bed like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Meanwhile, Tom was flapping around in a circle like a break dancer, showing off how his wattle wattled for the silly cows.

“Fair?” the matriarch said. “Look around you, where do you see ‘fair’? Whoever promised you ‘fair’? Your mommy? You talk like a half calf. Grow up, cow. You’re a goddess, act like one or be shunned by us other goddesses.”

“I’m not a goddess,” I said.

“Yes, she is, she’s a goddess,” said Shalom. “She’s just kidding, she’s a kidder, she kids, she is so goddess you can’t even believe it.” And then, for no apparent reason, he broke out in a soaring rendition of Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.” He had a pretty good voice for a pig, but still weird.

“What’s up with you?” I asked him.

“These mushrooms that grow on cow poop-‘silly sky’-they are excellent tasty,” Tom announced, then broke into the Patrick Hernandez disco classic “Born to Be Alive.” He did not have a good voice, even for a turkey. But his rhythm was excellent, pounding out that ’70s beat with his drumsticks. The silly cows were mesmerized by how his wattle vibrated while he sang.

“Psilocybin mushrooms,” the matriarch said, “open the mind, and they grow only in our dung, another reason we are sacred to humans. We nourish their bodies with our milk, our dung is used as fertilizer for their crops, and as fuel, and we even expand their consciousness with our mushrooms.”

(My editor called and says she’s on the fence about the drug stuff. “Parents will love it ’cause it’ll make them feel young and hip,” she said, “but then they’ll get uptight thinking their kids are being gatewayed into the world of drugs by talking animals.”

“Much the way my friend Joe the camel was a cute face, reminiscent of childhood cartoons, recruited to hawk the drug called tobacco?” I asked.

“Oh, Elsie.” She sighed. “I guess a big animal needs a big soapbox; you know I love you, all I ask is that you always ask yourself-is it tent pole? Sorry, I got another call here, from a horse, grandson of Mr. Ed by way of Ruffian, who’s written a tell-all tale of excess and redemption. Later, babe.”)

“I’m seeing colors,” Shalom said, “colors that have no name.”

“We are all the same, dudes,” Tom crowed. “Somebody touch me. No, don’t touch me. Lighten up, mama cow, let’s talk turkey, owwww stand back, gonna kiss myself!”

“Blellow. Blellow. Blellow,” Shalom slurred. “Blue and yellow together, that’s a color we need a name for. Coining it.”

“I’m flying again.” Tom crooned like Peter Pan. “You got me straight trippin’, boo.”

“Tell the porker and the fowl to shut up, as I will not address them directly.”

“I will not tell my friends to shut up.”

“Are you Hindu?” she asked.

“No.”

“Muslim? Zoroastrian? Jain? Buddhist? Jewish? Sikh? Parsi? Christian? Other?”

“They’re all the same to me.”

“Interesting story,” said Shalom. “I used to be Jewish, but now I’d have to say I’m Hindu. You guys are Hindu, right? I just converted. I am Hindu as hell, Bapu…” He snatched the yarmulke off his head and tossed it aside like a Frisbee and tried to get one of the cows to lend him a bindi for his forehead. He started chanting, “Can a, can a, can a brother get a bindi? Can a Hindi get a bindi!”

“I used to be Turkish,” Tom said, “but now I am… sooooo high…”

The matriarch shook her head dismissively. “Then it falls to you, American cow. Are you a goddess or an animal? Think before you speak, for we will shun you from our midst if you answer to our disliking.”

“I’m a cow,” I said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” the matriarch kept on. “Choose. I asked you if you were a goddess or an animal.”

“I am both,” I said.

“Choose one,” she said. “Choose one or choose nothing.”

“I am an animal,” I said. “No more, no less.”

“You dudes are really harshing my high with all the neg vibes. Have a shroom,” Tom purred.

“Blellow,” Shalom slurred.

I said again slowly, forcefully, “I. Am. An. Animal.”