Fun Memories of Cow dung

You ask someone from our generation to pick cow dung and you will see weird faces and many excuses and I must confess that I am one of them too. I am not at all found of this smell but somehow I have some good childhood memories associated with this smell.

Hindus worship cow and they consider all her by-product holy.  I have seen the cow dung coming inside my home and all the way to our Puja room during all Pujas and hawans. However I never used to take the responsibility of bring cow dung home but the place from where we used to buy cow milk had plenty of this. My parents believe that fresh cow milk is healthier then packet milk or carton milk so they found out a milk man near my house who had 8 to 10 cows and buffaloes and used to sell fresh cow milk.

This place was just ten minutes walk from my home, and we used to get milk from him in evenings. Days when my dad used to be busy with other things I used to walk with my mom to this place for getting milk. That place had a mixed small of milk, cows, cow dung and the grass. It was not pleasant smell but I use to enjoy going there as there I used to get lots of time to chit-chat with my mom, and my siblings were never there to disturb us :) . Later My Nani (Maternal grandmother) also started buying milk from same place on my mom’s recommendation.  And I started enjoying my time at the milk man’s place even more because I used to meet my Nani there. Milk man used to start taking out milk only when all the customers who buy milk from that particular cow are present there, so that they get fresh milk. As a result we had to wait there for 20 minutes every day. There were few more kids who used to come there with their parents, and some of us became friends. Because of all this the not so good smelling place became a fun place for me.

When I grew up bit more, I started going to that place with by younger brother and sister. We used to play some games on our way and used to talk nonstop about school and friends.  It was so enjoyable that we never said no for going and getting milk from there. Sometimes if mom asked only one of us to go still we all used to go together as it was very entertaining for us.

Now I live away from home, and due to lack of time I prefer buying packet milk only. Still whenever I see places where they sell fresh cow milk the smell of cows, milk, and cow dung makes me feel nostalgic. It takes me back to my fun childhood memories. This not so good small reminds me of very good times I had with my Mom, Nani, friends and siblings at the milk man’s place. I am sure all the people who see me smiling near a heap of cow dung will think I am mad but I don’t smile because I am enjoying the smell, I smile for my good old times which I associate with this smell :D


PS: I wrote this post for "AmbiPur smelly to smiley" on Indiblogger.