Prologue

Kalyani and the Cow Whisperer Chapter 1

“It’s all about motherhood. This earth, those trees and the cattle. It’s all about Motherhood. Creating a life, loving and caring, nurturing and healing. It’s all about Motherhood”

She would often mumble. Often in tune and sometimes out of tune. There was always a melancholic charm to her singing. Her folk songs were very deep and meaningful. One often missed the depth of them. Only after those mumblings replayed in your mind for a while, one could figure them out.

“What is she singing about, Amma?” I often asked my mother.

“You will understand it someday when you are grown up. You will understand her songs if you know about her life.” My mother would gently tell me off for being nosey.

Lakshmi Attye as everyone called her,

often would sit on the front porch or inner veranda and read. She would find something or the other to read. Her visitors always brought her books. Everyone knew how much she loved reading. Once read she would give her book away. Sometimes to the same person who brought it to her and sometimes to another person altogether.

I always found her to be a very tidy person. Impeccably dressed. Always wearing a clean saree traditionally draped with her gold jewellery carefully chosen for the day. Most of the times her fashion matched her elegant stance. She would take her time dressing up after her morning shower and prayer rituals before she appeared at the courtyard veranda for the breakfast. Sometimes she would join the family for breakfast and sometimes she would have it on her own. She had a little corner with a little diwan and a chair. She would sit there and read. Sometimes she would chant her prayers. She would read otherwise. She always had little rosary and a little a stringed purse made of old gold-laced saree fabric.

Sometimes she would call me, and I would run to her. She would give me sugar candy from her little purse. She always smelt of sandalwood. I always associated that sweet smell of sandalwood to her. Even when I was at the temple, I would relate that sweet aroma of sandalwood to Lakshmi Attye.

Lakshmi Attye was my grand aunt who was big part of my childhood. She lived with us in our familial home. Rather her familial home. She was there as a matriarch. She owned the house. She was my father’s aunt who fostered him after his parent’s death. She didn’t have family of her own.

Yet, all my childhood I felt there was more to her then what we knew about her. I always found it fascinating how she sang about cows. She would call out names randomly in her slumber. Undi, Gauri, Ganga and Kalyani, all the names she called were of the cattle she reared.

Every evening at the dusk she would make sure she lit the little oil lamps at the shrine in our house and would wait outside at the sunset keeping the front door open. “It is Godhuli.” She would say excitedly and call out the names. She would close her eyes and enjoy the golden shine of light hit her eyes. She loved this little ritual of her own. I have not seen anyone else doing it.

“What is Godhuli?” I asked my mother.

“Godhuli is that time in the evening as the sun set and all the cattle herd flock back in a little stampede causing little dust storm. It means Cow-dust. It is very auspicious moment.” My mother replied.

“But we don’t have any cattle anymore.” I was rather puzzled.

“We may not have them now. But that was how Attye could support the family. That’s how she earned the living. She sold fresh milk, and milk products like butter, yoghurt and ghee to the households and businesses around here back in her days. There was a time when she had her cow-shed full of cows eight in numbers. She would milk them all herself. Then she would measure them and send it to her regular customers in the morning. Then she would cook for the family before she would move to her kitchen again to churn the butter out or prepare ghee and sweets to send it to vendors. She did it most of her life. She managed her business on her own so that your father could complete his education and his sister was married off. Did you know they even say that all her cows would only milk well when she milked them. They even say that She could speak to them. They spoke to her too. Not just her cow but to all in the village too.” My mother told me.

“It is believed that she was born after the family was blessed by Kamadhenu, the cow goddess. Her parents had two sons. But they always wanted a daughter as they strongly believed that the arrival of a daughter to the household would bring prosperity to their dairy farm business. They were blessed with the daughter her mother performed auspicious ritual of Go-pooja, where she nursed a cow for a month. They named her Lakshmi, after the goddess of prosperity. She did bring lot of prosperity to her family.” My mother continued.

“There is a very interesting legend about her. When she was about two-years-old, her family visited the village temple for a ceremony.  She was left with her brothers to play around in the temple corridor. She had just learnt to walk. I guess she toddled out of the temple outside towards the square. Her brothers were so immersed in their play that they forgot about her. When her mother turned up to get her, they realised that she was lost. There was panic struck in the temple everyone including the temple priest started looking for her. They could not find her in the premise. They looked for her everywhere in the premise. The temple premise was so big that they couldn’t have imagined her toddling out of it. However eventually they had to get out of the temple premises in to the temple square. They noticed that there was a pin drop silence in the square. Everyone was quiet there as if they were trying not to move or make noise. To their astonishment they saw the temple Bull stood in the middle of the square hissing in rage. Little Lakshmi was hanging by her little frock on to one of its horns. For some strange reason even, the little child was not crying. Her parents were too shocked to scream. One of the vendors tried to approach the bull, but it hissed back at him. Lakshmi’s mother was sobbing. Her father apparently made hand gestures to keep the silence going. Then after half an hour or so of silence one could hear Lakshmi cooing. They even say that she was gently tapping her hand on to the forehead of the bull. I believe it calmed down the bull. He slowly sat down and lowered his head so that the toddler could be retrieved. Lakshmi Attye became a legend. That’s when they started saying that she can speak to cattle.” My mother accounted whatever she knew about Lakshmi Attye.

I was in disbelief when I heard that story. “The Cow Whisperer”. I blurted out.

“In the west, there are people who can speak to horses. They call them the horse whisperers. Lakshmi Attye is a Cow-Whisperer.” I told my mother.

My mother smiled at me. She had very proud look on her face as if she was amused by my knowledge. I didn’t think much about it then. I was only thirteen then.

I looked at Lakshmi Attye then. I knew there was more to the cow whisperer. As if she is a story. Very mystical. Very enigmatic.

As years passed I started seeing changes in Attye’s behaviour. She would be more forgetful. Though her personality didn’t change much, she still would dress up tidily and continued reading.

I must have been sixteen when one day Attye called me as she used to before she gave me sugar candies in my childhood.

“Come here, child.” She said as she took a packet wrapped up in her old silk saree. “This is for you. I know you always thought there was more to the cow whisperer than what people spoke about. This is that much more.” She handed it over tome. “Read it and try to understand it when you are older and wiser.” She was woman of few words then.

I took that packet to my room and slowly unwrapped it. Inside were two books. One old printed copy of Bhagavadgita in local language. Second one was an old journal fading to brown with fragile papers and some loose papers put inside them. I tried to flip through first few pages. They were full of written recipes of different dishes. They were of little interest to me. Then there were some old letters. None of them made any sense. There were some astrological charts and astrological calculations too. As I flipped through, I saw the pages started being uniform and something steadily written on them. As if an essay or something. I had to flip back to see the beginning of that section.

“Kalyani” it was titled. Reading in to I realised it was Attye writing an account of something. But the writing was so formatted as if one was reading a book. The book written by the Cow Whisperer.

I was about to discover more about the cow-whisperer.