Guess which of this post’s two key species is in a position to look down on the other?
Only Brazil is home to more cows than is India.
(if you add buffalo, then India has more “cattle” than any other nation, but in India buffalo are very definitely not “cows”)
The overwhelming majority of Brazilian cows are confined by fences, raised for meat, their lives ended in slaughterhouses.
Most of India’s circa one hundred and ninety million cows roam quasi-freely.
Circa one billion Indian Hindus – who comprise the majority among India’s nearly one point four billion humans – revere cows, would never eat their flesh, and would be horrified at the very thought of killing a cow, even accidentally.
“The order of things” depicted in this post’s two images is almost beyond belief to most Westerners – most especially when they realise that these images were taken in the very heart of a rapidly growing, sophisticated city of nearly four million humans, and which does indeed have a Rapid Transit rail system, an international airport, a world-renowned writers’ festival, swanky shopping malls….
To a local human inhabitant, however, there would be no reason at all to reach for a camera – why bother to photograph such an unremarkable scene?
Coming up next on Pelican Yoga: a “candid camera” walk through Jaipur’s “Old City”.