The Reign of the Bovine

(Before you start reading this, repeat in your mind: a story is a story, with no relation to anything present or of old times.)

Democracy throws up interesting ideas. Electorates play stupid games and win stupid prizes, and voters decide which politician’s story they’ll buy this time. So, in a faraway land, an enterprising leader decided that humans had enjoyed enough attention. It was time for the bovines.

He promised everything for the cows, and the people, feeling philosophical about their fleeting existence, said, “Why not? Humans have had too much in this life!” Angry news anchors jumped in: Doesn’t Article 48 of the directive principles recommend measures for bovines?! The leader, sensing momentum, promised the moon—and maybe Mars—for the cows. The crowd, clearly in bovine spirits, raised him to the status of the supreme man. Thus began the age of the bovine.

From the day he took his oath, the newly crowned Great Leader made it clear that cows would be his administration’s priority. And as with any great cause, it began with long meetings and even longer directives. Bureaucrats were tasked with ensuring that no bovine would shed a single tear on his watch.

Previously, selfish cattle-rearers had a simple solution when their cows stopped producing milk: they sold them off to masked men who took care of things. Where did these cows go? Farmers didn’t want to know—probably beyond the borders, some said. But now, this trade was shut down. Rumors swirled that some of these masked buyers had been “taken care of” by lynching mobs, but that’s a story for another time. The bottom line? Nobody came to buy these useless bovines anymore, and farmers, unwilling to keep them, kicked them out. Soon, the streets and fields were flooded with cows, exploring cities and ruling roads.

Naturally, the State needed a bovine census. Counting wasn’t enough—bureaucratic paranoia suggested some might fudge the numbers. Enter an enterprising officer (there’s always one), who proposed attaching biometric tags to every cow. This idea spread faster than gossip, and soon, officers were running behind bovines tagging ears, as if that determined their professional life.

With the census in full swing, the cow population surged. Towns, fields, forests—everything became cow country. And while these bovines once dined on garbage, they developed a taste for finer things: namely, freshly cultivated crops. Chaos ensued. Farmers, now demoted to second-class citizens, protested, but the administration had bigger (bovine) fish to fry.

But bovines were not only a menace to farms. They had developed a habit of appearing out of nowhere on dark, busy roads. Accidents became common, with cars and trucks often coming to a screeching halt or, worse, crashing into these wandering cows. Road jams followed, and there were even incidents where passersby were injured. This chaotic bovine presence on highways became too much to handle.

The solution? Fluorescent horns. To prevent accidents, the Great Leader decided that every cow would be outfitted with glowing horns. Officers scrambled to fit cows with these fluorescent beacons, and soon, the countryside was dotted with glowing bovine heads. It wasn’t unusual to see cows moving around at night like mobile neon signs, lighting up the roads, while the officers scurried like moths chasing light bulbs.

At the same time, bureaucrats faced a new dilemma: what to do with the ever-growing bovine population? The solution? Night raids. No District Magistrate wanted trouble, so under the cover of darkness, officials rounded up cows and moved them to neighboring districts. Raid protection parties quickly formed to defend their borders. This cat-and-mouse game worked for a while, but all good things come to an end.

In a bureaucratic stroke of genius, another officer proposed geo-tagging the bovines to end these inter-district skirmishes. Now all bovines could be monitored on a GIS map live. With bovines now traceable, the raids slowed, but the question remained: Where should all these cows go?

Shelters, of course! But there’s always a catch. Government orders rarely get enthusiased by their leaders zeal and they dictated that only thirty rupees a day could be spent per cow. Accustomed to their free-range diet of garbage, the cows found the dry fodder beneath their standards and went on hunger strike. Media outlets sniffed out the story, and headlines screamed, “Bovine Dies in District Shelter.” District Magistrates who dared let this happen found themselves swiftly transferred.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t just the media that caught wind of these bovine tragedies. Crows, ever the opportunists, would gather around dying or dead cows, cawing loudly and alerting the whole town before the officials even knew what had happened. It became an early warning system that no bureaucrat wanted. One enterprising SDM, however, had an idea: he ordered that dead crows be hung upside down to scare the others away. And just like that, the Shakespearean chorus of crows was silenced—at least for a while.

Then came the press—an enterprising tribe that had once merely reported the news but now saw a golden opportunity. Bureaucrats had always believed they alone could set terms and extract favors, but the press soon discovered their lucrative scheme. A well-timed headline like “Tears in the Eyes of a Bovine” could bring a District Magistrate to their knees. If the news involved a dead cow, suspension and disaster loomed. To avoid such fates, bureaucrats learned to settle matters quietly, and soon, a new kind of “freight chart” emerged. Press reporters knew exactly how much hush money to demand for keeping bovine tragedies out of the news. The balance of power had shifted this time.

But not all creatures were as enlightened as the bovines. Stray dogs, sensing the weakness of sick cows, often attacked them. The district administration, ever the problem-solver, swiftly rounded up the dogs. How they “took care of” the dogs is a matter best left unsaid, but one thing was clear: the dogs learned to steer clear of the sacred bovines.

The Great Leader wasn’t finished yet. In long, rambling video conferences, he extolled the virtues of bovine by-products. Cow urine, dung, hair—everything, he claimed, held economic potential. The problem, he insisted, was people’s selfishness. If only they embraced the bovine way of life, prosperity would follow.

But there’s nothing like a target to motivate bureaucrats. From the District Magistrates to the village Patwaris, everyone now had a duty to ensure that enough cows were being looked after. And if anyone dared claim that people weren’t interested in taking in these ageing, unproductive animals, they’d be met with raised eyebrows.

To solve the growing bovine problem, the Great Leader had another brilliant idea: house the cows with people. He believed, with full conviction, that citizens wanted to take these bovines in. Surely, they would be thrilled to open their doors to elderly cows, even those on their last legs. Hosting them, the Great Leader declared, would be a matter of pride.

To make sure the program was successful, directives were issued across the administrative hierarchy. From District Magistrates to SDMs, Tehsildars, and down to the humble village Patwari, everyone had their marching orders. Of course, no officer worth his salt could admit that people weren’t exactly lining up to provide for ageing bovines. The truth? No one was interested. But reality never stood in the way of a grand plan.

So, the bureaucracy did what it does best—turned to the oldest trick in the book. Where once people had to "facilitate" certain officials to get an arms license, now they had to commit to keeping five cows. Need your house map approved? Two bovines. This newly established "cattle care initiative" had to be enforced, and thus, providing for cows became the new currency. A barter system emerged where bovines were traded for permits, licenses, and approvals. Whether people were eager to care for the cows or not didn’t matter—the system had spoken.

As all this unfolded, humans—the ones who had once enjoyed their fleeting fame—continued to suffer. Fields were ravaged, law and order issues piled up, but none of it mattered. The focus remained on the bovines. And thus, great equilibrium was achieved.

And the lesson? It is now the age of the bovine. Humans will simply have to wait their turn.

#Satire #Humor #Bureaucracy #CowsAndPolitics #BovineChronicles #GovernmentSatire #FluorescentHorns #CrowsAndChaos #BarterEconomy #Storytelling #BovineAge #PoliticalSatire #AnimalRightsSatire