A few days back I had this sudden impulse to pet a cow/calf/goat/kid (goat kid..isn’t that what goat babies are called?)… Okay, that came out a little weird…
Anyway, while we were out driving in the scorching/burning heat to some shop, to look for stationery, I suddenly remembered how summers back home used to be like… And one of my fondest memories are of petting the stray cow/goat/calf/kids roaming around on the road…
While I spent a lot of time in Mandavelli, at Paati’s home, there would be these little darling goat kids running right outside our gate… Mama, would open the gate and grab a little one, and lift him/her up like a baby, and pet him… I would stand by and just stroke and pet the goat for a couple minutes, before he would start furiously bleating to be let down… Cannot forget the incredibly soft texture of the little goat’s skin….and the leaf-like ears, ever so slightly fluttering in a mild breeze…
There were other times, when outside our flats in West Mambalam, some cows belonging to the nearby milkman, would roam the streets and a couple of them would frequent our street…. Amma and I would sometimes fill up a bucket with water, and place it on the pavement right outside the gate for the big bovines to come and have their fill…and sometimes their calves would run along with them, and we would feed them bananas and such…
Sigh…. miss all these little things, all of a sudden.
