A day at the farmhouse
This year’s Gandhi Jayanthi was special for me. I did not spend time lazing around enjoying the government holiday as I had done every other year. In fact the night before, Ragu suggested that we (R.A.G.S. Squad) do something worthy- like planting saplings. I have never thought of such things. All my life I have looked forward to these government holidays only as another holiday at home! But this time I got an opportunity to give something back to the society.
As a youth sevadal of Sri Sathya Sai organization, I volunteered to attend a service at a farmhouse. The farmhouse has a “goushala” housing around 30 cows. It is one of the 28 gougrams started and maintained by V. Natesan, a retired RBI employee. This place provides shelter to cows that are sick and those sold for their flesh. Stats has it that more than 2 lakh cows are slaughtered every year in our country for their meat! But still India has the largest population of cows. The cow is considered as a god in Hindu mythology and harming or killing it is considered a sinful act. But it is said that the percentage of people who consume cow meat is increasing day by day. And consequently the number of cows slaughtered is also on the rise. The members of this gougram along with the police stop the trafficking of such cows and shelter them in these goushala. They are taken care of by a group of people who live in the farmhouse itself. These farmers also practise organic farming using the cow manure. The manure is also used for the gobar plant they have installed there. They feed only on the organic food that grows in their field. These crops are devoid of the poisonous fertilizers and pesticides and are good for health.
We split into groups and cleaned the farmhouse first. Then we were given the duty of giving the cows a much needed bath! Using a big hose pipe we splashed water on cows and then fed them with vegetables and crops. Then we sprayed manure on the fields after which a “gou pooja” was conducted for the cows. And then we had lunch prepared using the rice and vegetables from the organic farm.
This organization along with other big NGOs from all over the country has started a “Save the Cows” campaign. They are planning to introduce a law against killing of cows and are planning a rally for the same. More information on these can be read at www.gougram.org. You can visit the place anytime and do whatever help is possible for you. You can adopt a calf too! Or you can visit the place along with your family or friends once in a while and help them maintain it.
This was indeed one of the most satisfying days of my life! Just as Tharoor tweeted recently, it would be better if people did some useful work on government holidays rather than wasting it. We could use them as an opportunity to be useful to our society.
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Tagged as Conservation, personal, photos + Categorized under Scraps | »
hey different kind of social service!! really practising wat u preach..kudos to that!
@Preetha: Wait. What did he preach?
Great work. Good to hear but I wonder why you didn’t tell me about it earlier. I would have surely volunteered for this work ( Hope you know about my love and respect for the cow). Anyway it doesn’t matter. There’s always another time
This number would be in Kerala alone. All over India it would be still higher.
Well I did my part in bringing in down. I requested my close friend to stop eating it and amazingly he agreed. Now thats change from within !. Buoyed by joy I’m going to request all my ‘cow meat’ eater friends to stop it. Hope they’ll pay heed to my request.
I wonder what he did other that sitting in an AC suite and tweeting?
@Anand: I can’t help laughing at this coming from Anand.
But it’s okay now. Things change
@ Pras
This change is for the better
@Preetha: Hey thanks!
@Anand: Sorry i thought i informed it to all SQUAD members. And , yeah there is always a second chance
. They are planning to make this a frequent service,there are 29 such goushala’s!!. Regarding the number game, i dont really know. May be you are right with the stats. But the bottom line is that the number of people consuming cow meat and the number of innocent cows that are getting slaughtered is increasing day by day 
. Hope some law is passed to ban this!
@Pras: You should appreciate ans encourage “Master’s” initiatives rahter than laughing at it!!. It’s never easy to do such things
@Anandand @Hari: Okay, okay! Cool
great job hari!
and i simply love the pic of the calf taking a nap! too beautiful for words! 
@nethra: Thanks
There was another young calf too,just few months old!!,it was hopping around afraid of us. Couldn’t take a snap of it 
@SQUAD : U ppl always forget me
@SQUAD : BTW a good work !!!
@Vnkat: Don’t worry machi, you’ve been made a permanent SQUAD member
Nandri!!!!
hey left me alone uh,
remember me too pals,
when venkat is made permanent why cant i ………………… lol
well just kiddin ,
and venkat no hard feels , inform me the next time u do all these interesting deeds,
@“CHALLENGE” Dinesh Singh J: SQUAD is getting famous by every passing day
.Your request for admission will be processed by the core members. You’ll be informed about the results sooner 
I didn’t know so many were interested in doing such service. Next time ‘ll call u all for sure. We’ll make it a grand one
@Hari: Uh.. No, Dinesh will never make it to the squad. He’s just plain annoying.