Where’s the holy cows’ dung?

Yesterday in the office we had an interesting conversation about cow’s in India. Well, everybody knows that India is filled up with roaming holy cows. They are literally everywhere, from villages lost in high mountains, to posh districts of Delhi.

Everybody knows as well that you can’t kill them nor eat their meat (with exception for Kerala and West Bengal), and that for killing a cow you can even land up in the jail. Finally – everyone knows, that India is home to nearly 30% of world’s cattle and hence – one of the biggest milk producers.

But there are few things that cause a visitor to scratch his head… What happens to dead cows? Why nobody tries to capture all those roaming cows and milk them? What exactly does the “holy” status means – what is and what is not allowed when it comes to a cow? Most of these we solved during the short conversation over lunch and if you want the answers, you can find them here. And last, but not least… what happens to all those holy cows’ dung?

That is truly surprising, as India is not particularly famous for its clean streets. You can find pretty much everything here on the road, but surprisingly – cow dung is rarely one of those things. Ok -you would see some – but comparing to the number of cows roaming around, it’s really a little.

There are three possible explanations:

1) These are holy cows, so they don’t pooh

2) These cows are gentleman (heritage of British Raj), so they go pooh hidden places.

3) Third one is this:

Caked and dried on walls or rocks, cow dung is used in India as a fuel, fertilizer, mud brick additive, and …. even as a tooth polish, dish washer or skin tonic. At least according to this list of 101 uses of cow dung.. Somebody asked me, if India is a green country? Well – for sure it’s leading in biofuels and recycling!

And one last mystery. “Why do those cows stare at me like this?” asked Safiye (my flat mate).

Any ideas, anyone?