I. B. Snortin’

The cows and bulls in Jagannath Puri are not the scrawny kind you see some places. These are wild, well-fed resort town cows. They’ve got hotel after hotel after restaurant after restaurant to choose from. Remnants of lunches end up in piles on the street, and that’s where the well-fed cows come in—the originators of the concept of biodiesel.

Here, cows and bulls wander all over—on the beach, meandering through the streets. Bulls will nose up to a tea stall and smilingly wait for biscuits, as the nervous clientele edge away down the bench. At night, a large segment of the urban seaside cow population gathers at the Swargadwar Cremation Grounds, where chances are good of finding a nice warm spot in the dust, which is made up of countless former residents of Jagannath Puri.

As far as I can see, the cows don’t “belong” to anybody. They’re free agents. Twice a day, when the vegetable markets close for lunch and for the night, shopkeepers deposit their un-sellable stock in an alley, and that’s where the cows go. Cows are vegetarians, so you rarely see dogs and cows working the same pile. Remnants of fish dinners go to the Dogster.

Soon after we landed here, we noticed a particularly well-fed but apparently grumpy bull. His frequent snorts sounded like rocks being thrown into a large plastic bucket in someone’s garage. This ominous sound made us nervous. It reminded us of cartoon bulls snorting and pawing the dirt ready to charge. The same bull would often plunge his huge, horned head into a pile of construction sand and throw it over the rest of his body, causing a big cloud of dust. It was a fearsome sight.

We did not want to get on the bad side of this snorting, grumpy monster, whom we regularly met in the alley. We always gave him a wide berth, careful not to get too close to his massive head, massive neck muscles, and massive horns. We’d seen and heard of people getting too close to cows’ heads in India and ending up on the ground when said bovine decided to toss his or her head to the side unexpectedly.

But one time, standing downwind of him, I heard him snorting, and simultaneously figured out the source of his foul mood and foul breath: gas. So I gave him a name: Indigesta Bull. My theory was that he was unable to restrain himself from freely indulging in the yummy castoffs of every restaurant and subji walla in this neighborhood.

Once I saw a man come out of his house holding a rolled-up chapatti for Indigesta Bull to eat. I.B. Snortin’ calmly approached the man, lifted his head, and peacefully ate the whole thing out of his hand. As he was eating, I noticed a shower of white powder or crystals falling from his mouth. I wondered if our neighbor was administering some kind of bull antacid. After Mr. Belch had passed, and I was safely out of range of his horns, I went over to investigate the fallen granules more closely. It was sugar.
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One night, some Jagannath prasadam unexpectedly arrived at our door, we both ate as much of it as we could, but there was still a pile of rice remaining that neither of us could finish. I surely didn’t want to waste such a highly coveted prize as Jagannath prasadam, but I figured the best thing to do was feed it to the four-legged residents of Jagannath Puri. Nothing goes to waste here. if the dogs didn’t get it, the cows would. It’s not like the USA, where tons of uneaten food lies sealed inside plastic bags in mountainous landfills.

I took the plate of rice to leave in the side yard. And who was already waiting right there in the dark? You guessed it. He was already coming towards me as I exited the swinging metal garage doors, bolstering my theory that residents of holy places can read minds.

I went over and emptied the rice into the grass. Indigesta Bull was right on it, licking it up, licking the plate, snorting softly and happily. I petted his massive neck and hump. “Hari bol, Indigesta Bull. Hari bol.”