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. AnonymousAugust 19, 2013 at 4:12 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 19, 2013 at 4:18 PM

      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. AnonymousAugust 19, 2013 at 6:10 PM

      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. SidAugust 19, 2013 at 6:06 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 19, 2013 at 6:20 PM

      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. wingsAugust 19, 2013 at 9:17 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2013 at 6:35 AM

      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. GurujiAugust 20, 2013 at 8:29 AM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2013 at 12:09 PM

      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. Sanjay Kumar SrivastavaAugust 20, 2013 at 9:59 AM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2013 at 12:12 PM

      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. RatAugust 20, 2013 at 11:21 AM

    wow.. simple and a wonderful parable. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousAugust 20, 2013 at 1:39 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2013 at 3:08 PM

      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. SangrywordsAugust 20, 2013 at 7:43 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 20, 2013 at 8:16 PM

      This could be one of the shortest stories you ever read :)

      Delete
  9. Ritesh AgarwalAugust 21, 2013 at 3:08 PM

    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. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 21, 2013 at 8:06 PM

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

      Delete
  10. UnknownAugust 21, 2013 at 7:19 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 21, 2013 at 8:08 PM

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

      Delete
    2. UnknownAugust 22, 2013 at 2:31 PM

      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
  11. SubrotoAugust 31, 2013 at 7:28 PM

    This is absolutely brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

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
44 comments
Read more

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand
6 comments
Read more

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv
10 comments
Read more

Cats and Love

No less a psychologist than Freud said that the “time spent with cats is never wasted.” I find time to spend with cats precisely for that reason. They are not easy to love, particularly if they are the country variety which are not quite tameable, and mine are those. What makes my love affair with my cats special is precisely their unwillingness to befriend me. They’d rather be in their own company. “In ancient time, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this,” Terry Pratchett says. My cats haven’t, I’m sure. Pratchett knew what he was speaking about because he loved cats which appear frequently in his works. Pratchett’s cats love independence, very unlike dogs. Dogs come when you call them; cats take a message and get back to you as and when they please. I don’t have dogs. But my brother’s dogs visit us – Maggie and me – every evening. We give them something to eat and they love that. They spend time with us after eating. My cats just go away without even a look af
13 comments
Read more

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation
4 comments
Read more