Skip to main content

The cow and the mosquito

The picture is from the ISKCON site.

The cow asked the mosquito, “There’s so much milk in my udder.  Why are you then sucking my blood?”


The mosquito grinned at the cow and went on sucking the blood. 

Comments

  1. Hahaha..Just like the Iskcon guys sucks our Money in the name of service to God even money is not needed for the service of God

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I borrowed the pic from ISKCON but did not intend to make fun of them. I was referring to the normal tendency of certain species (of people, particularly) who are bent upon sucking the blood of others when there are far better things to be extracted!

      Delete
    2. I know you're not making fun of them but everyone knows the truth they are sucking People's money in the name of service to god...I am not referring to God I am referring to the Iskcon Guys not only Iskcon but most of the Big temples in India they are taking it up as a business..

      Delete
  2. I too was wondering what you would be doing on the ISKCON site? I thought you were an atheist(who was by birth a Christian).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was doing nothing at the ISKCON site, Sid. I just google for a picture of a smiling cow and google landed me at ISKCON :)

      Delete
  3. Wow! What a parable! Milk is your cup of tea! Blood is your Boss' cup of tea! Ha..Ha.. What a Dairy! Hats of to you, sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wings, see how you applied it to life around you and found the small post relevant and meaningful. There are lots of people in the world who can find it similarly relevant and meaningful.

      By the way, I should make it clear that the idea is borrowed from a Malayalam poet whose name I can't recall.

      Delete
  4. That poem is one that perplexed me always, as biologically speaking nothing wrong in what the mosquito is doing. But from the view point of a creature that likes milk more than blood, its wrong. And I get confused thinking what is absolute right, if there is such a thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The poem is not about absoluteness, Santhosh. At any rate, is there anything absolute outside the world of mathematical sciences? The poem conveys the idea that even when there are a lot of good things to be looked at many people would rather go looking for the ugly side of reality.

      Cows and mosquitoes don't read literature, you see. It's all for us, those who create meaning with words.

      Delete
  5. This is all about ordination, which you have narrated in few simple lines. And, that is why most of the people are "Nearer the Church, And Farther the God".
    Nevertheless, Excellent.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know, by mentioning ISKCON I was merely acknowledging the source of the pic. The post has little to do with religion, though it can be applied to religion as well.

      You are right: those who wear the trappings of religion on their sleeve are the least religious.

      Delete
  6. wow.. simple and a wonderful parable. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. hahhaa I see sir- ISKCON grabbed the unwanted attention out here.Anyways.. on the amazing story .. Ask a corrupt - Need Money or Nirvana .. and you know the answer :D .. my owl interprets so :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The advantage with allegories is that one can interpret it in a million ways. I'm happy I could elicit the natural that is very congenial to you.

      Delete
  8. I was hoping to read a gripping story ... but this one is brilliant :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This could be one of the shortest stories you ever read :)

      Delete
  9. Hello sir. Actually like sangeeta said, i too felt there would be some short story ahead. But this one liner is subtle and far more effective.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes a few words can convey much. Thanks, Ritesh. But I must acknowledge my debt to a Malayalam poet for this achievement.

      Delete
  10. LOL...people are more interested in petty things :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. May not always be petty, Pankti. Sometimes the interests can be lethal.

      Delete
    2. What seems lethal is not always lethal when you look at it from the macro level. At least, that's my observation has been until now.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...

A Curious Case of Food

From CNN  whose headline is:  Holy cow! India is the world's largest beef exporter The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is perhaps the only novel I’ve read in which food plays a significant, though not central, role, particularly in deepening the reader’s understanding of Christopher Boone’s character. Christopher, the protagonist, is a 15-year-old autistic boy. [For my earlier posts on the novel, click here .] First of all, food is a symbol of order and control in the novel. Christopher’s relationship with food is governed by strict rules and routines. He likes certain foods and detests a few others. “I do not like yellow things or brown things and I do not eat yellow or brown things,” he tells us innocently. He has made up some of these likes and dislikes in order to bring some sort of order and predictability in a world that is very confusing for him. The boy’s food preferences are tied to his emotional state. If he is served a breakfast o...