cow dung (and Tamil jokes) can be injurious to health

Tonight as I was walking home from the parotta stall up at the bus stop I noticed a big conflagration out in front of the cow shed/dairy. I stopped at a local family's house to inquire as to the cause of this Sunday's disturbance. The dairy folks were on one side of the road and other residents were on the opposite side of the street and they were shouting back and forth. Basically the dairy has become a sort of Superfund site here in Meenambalpuram because they don't clean up the cow dung and the poor cows are standing in several inches of chaani (dung). Now that it is monsooning, the dung is running all over the place and the neighborhood stinks to high heaven. People are saying that their kids are getting fevers because of this, and they want the family to clean up this dung problem. I actually don't think it stinks anywhere near as bad as it did back in the hot part of summer when that dung was getting baked in the 107F sun and the smell was wafting in here all day long (I live across the street from this cow shed).

It is a source of consternation to some folks that this dairy family prospers despite living in a veritable pig sty. In this country cleanliness is absolutely next to godliness, and it doesn't seem fair to my friends that people who bathe, practice proper hygiene, pray and act godly would suffer in poverty while these dirty people are rolling in rupees. I did notice that they don't seem to wear very clean clothes. But it wasn't until today when I saw the grandpa using a cow's tail as a hand towel that I realized exactly what my friends were getting at when they accused these people of inferior hygiene. I think henceforth I will be buying my curd elsewhere.

So as I watched the fight taking place from the front stoop of the neighbor's house, I made a Tamil joke which was really something of a victory for me....until the older lady of the family started laughing so hard she began to choke! Stop me if you've heard this one already....I said, "English-le naarrukkizhamainnu Sunday. Aanaa, ingee naarrukkizhamainnu sundai!" Basically it translates, "In English "naarrukkizhamai" means "Sunday" but here "naarrukkizhamai" means "fight." " Basically it is a play on words because Sunday kind of rhymes with sundai (fight), and of course it isn't funny in English! So you will just have to take my word for it that people here seem to think this is a pretty funny joke. And everyone seems to agree, Sunday is a day for fighting around these parts. (As I write this I am under attack by enormous flying cockroaches. The monsoon creates rivers of dung, but it also ushers in my most hated creature on this Earth!)

local cow dining on scraps from the parotta stall

a rare moment of peace...