Shining Hero. Sara Banerji

more male calves were born.

      ‘In the West these surplus animals would be used for meat,’ sighed Pandu, ‘but here in our Hindu land I cannot think of an answer. There seems no end to the problems.’

      At first it was difficult to sell the milk. The people of Bengal were used to pure white buffalo milk and looked on the golden cream of Jersey milk with suspicion. Eventually Arjuna’s father found a dairy in Calcutta which catered to a sophisticated sort of Memsahib. But after only a month of the arrangement there was a blockade. The Naxalites closed the road for a week in protest at one of theirs being murdered. The blockade was lifted. Pandu tried to get the milk into town again but on the following day the group who had committed the murder closed the roads in retaliation for the retaliation.

      Pandu lost the market in Calcutta.

      Before he bought the cows, Pandu had gone to see his friend, the minister for dairy development.

      ‘A government chilling tanker will collect your milk once it reaches a hundred litres,’ he was told.

      Day after day, as the quantity rose, the hope of government salvation drew closer. At last the day came. A hundred litres was in the tank. Pandu contacted his friend, the minister.

      It took a week of lost milk for Pandu to discover that the chilling tanker had been a figment of the minister’s hopeful imagination.

      Pandu decided to deliver it to the chilling centre himself. This was at Barrackpur, on the outskirts of Calcutta, requiring the milk to be driven, unchilled, for four hours. They began milking the cows at three so as to get it to the centre before the sun rose and the weather grew hot.

      At the end of the week Pandu went to collect his money. And found he had been fined for selling watered milk.

      He protested, ‘I am with the milk from the moment it is taken from the cows to the moment I deliver it to you. There is no way water could have got in.’

      ‘Perhaps the cows are not of sufficient quality,’ suggested the manager.

      ‘These are Jersey cows. Their milk is the creamiest in Europe.’

      ‘Ah, Billaty cows, I have heard of this being a problem. Their milk is very low in butterfat.’

      A government official was sent to test the milk at the moment of milking. He pronounced it well within the desired range. ‘Good for a Billaty cow,’ he said. ‘Though of course the milk of a desi cow is much higher in butterfat.’

      Pandu returend to the chilling centre with his milk and once again was penalised.

      This time the manager looked sympathetic. ‘You see, the system is that there are fellows putting water into their milk and taking credit from others.’