Mad Cow Disease in Maa-Maati Land

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The front page of a newspaper the cows can't eat now.

Cow is a good animal. Cows give milk and yummy steak. Cows live in herds and masticate newspapers, if given. Cows moo “Maa Maa”, wallow in the “Maati” (soil) and rely on the “Manush” (people) for caregiving. Thus, cows vote in tandem when you put the “Maa, Maati and Manush” (MMM) together as your political tagline. There are intellectual or budhdhijibi cows who counsel the stupid ones to vote for “MMM” to bring about Change or “paribartan“ after million cow-years of “Red” cow rule. The Red Cow Party had a “sickle” as its symbol that most cows disliked on Facebook; as the sickle signifies the chopping off of the top part of the grass or “trina” that cows consider their only food while they graze on the meadows. Cows, however, had never tasted the “grass-roots” or “Trinamool” because their tongue could never reach bottom of the green grass. Thus cows don’t know how the “Trinamool” or grass-root tastes like. Curious cows then mooed “Maa Maa” from the barn to demand for some good “Trinamool” tasting. And one summer day the “Goddess of the Roots” did grant them their coveted wish. The Red Cow rule finally ended and the green “grass-roots” were now planted all over for the cows to see and eat. In exchange of this favor, the “Goddess of the Roots” had called on the cows to support her visions, absolutely. She promised greener meadows and a Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal) landscape, a nostalgic utopia of sorts for the cows. Most cows cheered but some cows feared for the future that awaited them all.

It’s not even a year since that promised summer day when the cows came out in herds to perform happy dance for the roots. But the poor stupid cows never valued their freedom that they had taken for granted for long. The freedom of grazing freely in the meadows, eating whatever newspapers they lay their tongues on or mooing whatever they liked or disliked on Facebook. Now, under the new rules, they are told which newspapers to eat and which not to eat, which meadows to graze and where not to graze, which cartoons to like and which one to dislike, what to say on Facebook and what not to say, how to behave locally and how to behave digitally, how long to masticate and when to swallow. A phalanx of bulls has now been employed to bully the cows who may flout these rules.

Asphyxiated, the cows are scared and shocked. The intellectual or budhdhijibi cows are now mooing “Maa Maa” on the street corners calling for the “manush” or people to show up and protect their democratic rights that are now trampled underneath the “maati” (soil). But the real “manush” is missing too, and thus no one to take care of the things. Abandoned cows thus found themselves again waiting for another change to set in. But some cows are mad in anger against the bullying of the bulls unleashed by the Goddess of the Roots, who broke so easily her sweet promises. Thus, “Mad Cows” are again organising themselves to cure this systemic “disease” of false changes.