Cows, bullocks, cattle, oxen - call them what you want - they seem to rule the roads in rural India. Without a doubt their favourite place to stand is in the middle of the road and they appear to have no conception of danger and barely even flinch when a dirty great truck speeds past with inches to space.
Mugdha, one of our guides, explained that to own a cow brings a special aura on a family and the more they own, the bigger the aura - at least I think she was saying aura and not aroma. Sometimes groups of villagers join forces in looking after the animals and take it in turns to take them out to pasture for the day and bring them in at night.
These are the lucky ones, many are just left to wander around as they please, causing havoc with the traffic.
Apart from the aura, why do they keep cattle? The meat isn't eaten (they're sacred) and even the milk isn't generally drunk as the favoured type of cow doesn't produce much. The one contribution they seem to make is SH*T which is collected, formed into neat little patties and dried. Apparently it is then used for building and repairing houses.
This however was definitely a commercial enterprise but we're still baffled as to what they do with them. Our other guide, Deepti, has a small dairy farm but her animals are Friesians which are better milkers
