When I Smell Blood

I like my cows walking proud,

their bellies full of green grass,

and dry fodder, but no cancer plastic.

I like them walking fearless,

not butchered on open streets,

by educated men, who wear

bloodied hooves as mufflers,

and eat raw guts,

dripping red,

like some Neanderthal mob.

 

I like my cows walking strong,

their innocent asymmetry

rolling on Indian streets,

adding more chaos, colours and life.

I won’t call my cows holy or mother.

I’d rather like, they live unmolested

in the human jungle, more equal than others.

Just as I don’t call my women

goddesses, worshiped in holy texts,

and molested on streets.

 

When I smell blood of cows,

I smell a future pregnant with elections.

This I don’t smell when you gut a lamb,

twist the neck and pluck feathers of a chicken,

barbecue a dog alive in Nagaland,

or marinate a salmon, all creations of a lesser deity.

I smell it when you kill a cow

and capture its killing on camera

to be shared and made viral

for spreading hate on both sides.

 

My cows are cows simple and pure,

not politics walking,

on four cattle legs,

or hate and religion

dressed in flesh, horns and hooves.

I like my cows walking proud,

but I love men more,

acting human, choosing wisely.

I like humans exercise choices,

unafraid and free.

 

I like cows alive, walking, elite, mundane,

with magic only in their being,

not in urine or dung.

I like cows minus mythology or politics.

Yet, I love little men more

‘spite of their failures

and lack of humanity.

Men might learn to be human,

if they stay alive

and given freedom​ to choose.

 

©2017, Bhupendra Singh