Care For Cows
BY: KURMA RUPA DASA
June 9, VRINDAVAN, INDIA (SUN) — Feature excerpt from the June 2006 issues of the Care For Cows Newsletter
In the fall of 2001 the Padayatra
came to Vrindavan to conduct the
Vraja Mandala Parikrama and
during their stay we often visited
their camp to admire the bulls.
The most impressive of the lot
was Krsna, the black and regal
veteran who had circumambulated
India twice during his ten years on
the road. His massive horns were
almost perfectly symmetrical and
when he held his head up, their tips
rose to a height of seven feet.
Though gentle, when he wanted to
be left alone, he would cock them
threateningly to distance all
irritating admirers.
At the end of the Parikrama H.H.
Lokanath Swami, Istadev dasa and
Sanak-Sanatana dasa discussed the
possibility of retiring Krsna in
Vrindavan. Though he was fit to pull
the cart for another year, they were
concerned that he might reach his
limit far from an appropriate place
to retire so they decided to leave
him in Vrindavan though he was
still strong.
When the news spread that he
would be retired here, we rushed to
Lokanath Swami to beg him to leave
Krsna at Care for Cows. When we
promised to build the majestic bull a
special shed and Radhapati and I
signed a document vowing to attend
to his every need, Lokanath Swami
happily agreed.
The day the Padayatra pulled out,
Krsna was disturbed to be left behind
and since I was holding his lead rope,
he blamed me for his misfortune. He
was attached to being with the other
bulls and especially to pulling the
cart of Sri-Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar.
It took him a few months to
settle in and he was often more than
unruly. In the attempt to pacify him,
we proposed to build a cart so he
could do some light work as he was
used to walking about twenty
kilometers a day. Everyone liked the
idea so we began immediately and
on the day we finished I asked Jaya
Vijaya, who had worked with Krsna
on Padayatra for several years, to
help us hitch him up and take him
on a ride through Raman Reti.
Like in a dream, a picture arose in
my mind of this noble bull,
luxuriously garlanded with flowers
and brass bells, strutting in royal gait
down Vrindavan’s main street with
hundreds of admiring eyes first
falling on him and then on me
perched proudly on the cart holding
his reigns in my left hand while
showering blessings upon all with my
right, much like a hero riding in
procession down New York’s Fifth
Avenue in a stretch-limo.
As we led him to the harness,
Krsna firmly resisted but after a
twenty minute
struggle, four of us
managed to secure
him. While Arjuna sat
on the cart, Rama Babu
walked beside him
holding the lead rope,
while Jaya Vijaya and I
followed behind.
Since Krsna was
accustomed to pulling
the Supreme
Personality of Godhead
on a teak wood
intricately hand-carved
cart he did not find it becoming to
pull an ordinary mortal on a puny
mango wood cart fit for a horse. To
demonstrate his dissatisfaction, he
took off at full speed eliciting a
chorus of shouts from the four of us.
I ran after the cart while a distressed
Jaya Vijaya fell behind holding his
hand on his hernia. When Krsna
reached the main road he tried to
scrape the cart off on two of the
biggest neem trees lining the road
but Ram Babu tugged the lead rope
just in time to divert him. Snorting in
irritation, Krsna broke into a full
gallop and waved his horns wildly
threatening the opposing traffic of
cars, bicycles, three-wheelers and
rickshaws sending them into a flurry.
On that day Providence arranged for
all reckless drivers to reap the fruit of
their actions.
Shouts at desperate volume
warned all on the road that the bull
with the most formidable horns in
Vrindavan was running amok.
Children squatting on the side of the
road gathered their pants around
their knees and scurried behind trees
in fear of their lives. A fruit vendor’s
metal scale with three mangoes
clanged on the street as he
frantically shoved his cart out of the
way. Under a tree, a man with his
face fully lathered toppled out of the
barber’s chair and bolted.
As Krsna approached the
Parikrama path, pilgrims, vegetable
venders, horse-carts and five-yearold
girls carrying their infant siblings
scattered in all directions. Village
women dropped the loads on their
head and shrieked in various high
pitches filling the ether with panic.
Two men on a motor
scooter rudely
dismissed lesser
pedestrians and
bicycles with shrill
beeps and fearlessly
entered the road
unaware that their
superiority would too
soon be foiled. Their
eyes widened and their
pan-stained teeth
chattered as Krsna
lowered his massive
horns like the prongs
of a fork lift prepared to scoop them
in the air. They skidded abruptly and
desperately dragged the scooter to
safety, the cart whisked by missing
them by inches, the driver discovered
he had wet his pants. As the cart
sped under the Bhaktivedanta Swami
Gate, the veins in Arjuna’s neck
bulged as he alerted everyone of the
danger. Rama Babu, at great personal
risk, bravely ran along side the angry
bull pulling the lead rope to break
his speed.
Oblivious to everything but their
ears and genitals, three young men
in a motor rickshaw meandered in
the middle of the wide road, their
arms extending out of the vehicle
gyrating to the rhythm of the
cinema song blasting unnervingly
from their cassette player. On the
back of the three-wheeler was
written, “King of the Road” and as
the driver leaned out to proudly
decorate the pavement with red
slime, the corner of his eye caught
the raging bull in full gallop about to
overtake them. The party was over.
Providence arranged to dispel the
three Princes’ illusions of grandeur
by having their royal conveyance
side-swiped by a speeding ox cart.
The initial crash silenced their song
and sent the vehicle spinning. Cries
and screeching tires predominated
briefly before the smashed heap
toppled over on its side, smoking.
Sunglasses, a greasy comb, shattered
mirrors, a plastic Ganesh murti, an
imitation Seiko watch, a bundle of
555-brand beedies, cassette tapes, a
photo of a cinema actress showing
her cleavage, a puddle of black oil
and the shattered hopes of three
tangled Bollywood wanna-bes lay in
disarray on the black top.
Krsna was disappointed that the
impact did not free him from his
bondage and in greater anger swung
into a wide U-turn and headed back
toward the Bhaktivedanta Swami
arch in search of a stationary object
to side-swipe. By some stroke of luck
he lost his footing and fell to his
knees and upon attempting to get up
got twisted and bound in the harness
and lay on his side snorting furiously.
The cart and his massive heaving
body formed a road-block and cars
traveling in both directions began
to pile up and honk uproariously.
Hundreds of gawkers instantly
gathered to scream in Hindi which
easily lends itself to shrill
exclamations. Krsna’s rear leg was
caught in the harness and as I tried
to release it so he could stand, a
merchant woman shook her fist at
me while retrieving Pepsi Cola
bottles rolling on the sidewalk; truck
drivers and their seedy assistants
descended their screeching beasts to
goad me in chorus to clear the
passage; the dethroned princes
screamed frantically, one held his
long red pinky fingernail skyward as
he flashed his bleeding elbow, the
other showed a skinned knee
protruding out of his torn imitation
Levis, the third yanked on my kurta
demanding I drop everything and
attend to them. Pandemonium.
Despite the chaos we managed to
get Krsna up and with four hands
clinching his nose harness, we slowly
walked him to the goshala while
maybe fifteen opportunists followed
behind formulating strategies on
how to capitalize on their scratches,
rips and dents. When we arrived the
cowherd men were filling the feeders
with fresh grass and after unhitching
Krsna, he calmly walked over to his
new shed and began devouring his
share as if nothing out of the
ordinary had happened.
As I approached to chastise
him, he dismissed my intimidating
posture by closing his eyes and
pointing his muzzle at me while
nonchalantly munching the fresh
clover. After swallowing, his
penetrating gaze firmly expressed,
“Did you get the message? Don’t
EVER AGAIN try to use me to
enhance your false prestige.”
Read the entire June 2006 issue of Care For Cows here
For more information, visit the Care For Cows website.
