Moooovement

 Almond milk, soya chops, lettuce tomato wraps and many such vegan delicacies adorned the dining table, to lure a veganism inflicted honourary. Waiters bustled with more plant based diets while other meat loving guests twitched their noses in dismay. 

"It's a fashion, you see." A man suited in leather boots and hat, smirked to another. 

"Yeah! To expect these high end products for your welcome, is now a statement of luxury." Another pitched in. 

"But why we suffer? Let the guest have his soy legs and we our chicken. Why make the custom mandatory?" There were many who would join this bandwagon. 

Maayan took swigs of lemonade as he evaesdropped this conversation. The conference room smelt of leather to him. Zillion cattle cries washed his ears. He was reminded of the story of a little boy, cattle grazing in Tanzania. 

---///----

"No, no, no, Belinda. Don't wander off too far, my darling."

Moooo.... The cow obedient to her master curtailed the urge to wander in search of greener pastures. Swaying her tail, partly to shove off flies and partly to show her 'Relax, I am here itself' attitude to her little master, Belinda grazed amicably. 

In her august company, the little boy dug pits to hide the potatoes he had earned after selling her sweet milk. None could be trusted in a desolute village of Tanzania, especially an orphan had to be extra cautious. The villagers did show him courtesy on occasions of droughts and famines, otherwise he was more of a self sufficient boy, having locked loving horns with his bovine friend. 

Mooo... Belinda needed frequent attention and the boy showered her with folk songs he had heard from his mother when a toddler. The wordings mostly replaced by a la lall la la or a ho ho ha ha... Yet the melody transported both the creatures to a different plain. 

"Belinda you are turning out to be a famished monster. Look how much of grass you have polished off from that patch!"

Moooo.... Belinda grazed and cocked her head sheepishly. 

"Eat, eat my darling. The baby needs it." The boy caressed her bulging belly with muddy hands. Belinda ruminated, in pride. The days were near and she needed a nursing care. But looking at her master who had grown up nestled in the lap of nature, she didn't fear the inevitable. 

At night, the boy would tie a rope to his neck and other to Belinda's neck. If someone tried to pull her in the dark, he would wake up with strangulation and then raise an alarm. After all, cattle was wealth in the Maasai tribe. Only wealth for a boy whose parents had succumbed to sleeping sickness. 

This night, Belinda mooed in pain and the boy sat beside her till the calf was born. Then began days of feasting for the calf and fasting for the boy. His belly for days grumbled to object to starvation. He was a principled man in many ways. He refused to milk the cow and sell the milk, for it meant violation of the calf's rights. 

What dawned to him, never set on the villagers and it was a cause for a doom. The boy grew weak with very few potatoes to support his feeble ribs. Yet, he knew this too shall pass and in few days the calf would start grazing. Hope always thrives on the skin of the burnt. His skin now hugging the bones and belly burning in hunger, still he refused to milk the cow. 

Mooo.... Belinda cried tears of agony seeing her masters deteriorating condition. On occasions, she kicked and pushed her calf away but the boy brought it back again at the udder. He now had a playful company. The calf shoved mosquitoes as her master slept. It nudged him to play on days he was duped by fatigue. The threesome were a family now. 

One sinister night, as the three slept dreaming of a buoyant sunrise, the village dacoits attacked them. Cattle the source of livelihood was very frequently stolen for milk, meat and hide. The rope strangulated the boy and he started to raise an alarm. But the strong, ape like Maasai men got better of him. 

Belinda and the calf, too retaliated with aggressive attacks. This was now taking the shape of some kind of war. The dacoits could not control the beast. In an attack of self defense, they slit Belinda's throat. 

Mooooo....... 

*  *   *   *   *

Belinda's cries shook Maayan. He could still recollect the fateful night how his friend had succumbed to her injuries. He had wiped her wounds with his sarong and the bloodstained sarong still lay in his closet to remind him of the hood he came from. A poor Maasai boy now at a conference in Nigeria. 

The podium lit up and a gentleman in suit spoke at the mike, "Ladies and gentlemen please welcome Mr. Maayan Masai our Chief guest from Tanzania."

The crowd rushed towards the doors as a man in multicolored cotton, loose tunic ambled towards the stage. 

"Wearing informals as if on a trip to Hawaii, too seems to be in fashion." 

The crowd cheered gleefully, condemning the honorary in whispers. 

Author's note : Here hood, is used as a slang for impoverished neighborhood. Also known as ghetto.