MOTHER COW- GOPI CHAND

…I have come into the shed of our new owner. Our conditions turned topsy-turvy.
Our new owner used to take us to each and every house , milk us and sell it. In the beginning, he used to allow my child drink my milk. Later on , he stopped it. Once my child had been left for drinking milk, it used to run towards me in hunger. When it neared me, milk used to come for giving. but who would allow my child to drink my milk?
Our owner used to take away my child forcibly and tie it to a yoke. While it used to struggle unable to drink my milk, I felt my life was ebbing out. I couldn’t understand why I had been born, giving milk or even surviving. I ever thought that earning money by selling my milk by my owner had been wrong. But what about my child? Does it not have right to live? Does it not have fortune to taste the milk of its mother? What kind of mother am I who couldn’t look after its child?

My child became weak without milk or food before my very eyes. I myself couldn’t recognize it. One day my calf didn’t come with me . I thought about the reason. It was injustice to separate a mother from her child. For four days I couldn’t find my child. I felt disgusted and stopped giving milk. My owner beat me to the pulp. Still, I didn’t want to give my milk and defied him not caring for my life. The next day, our owner brought a calf to me and I was happy that my child came back to me though I had suffered a lot. I was tied and my child brought to me to drink my milk. I felt elated but what is this touch? When it touched my nipples ,I realized the secret that it had been a calf made of hay. He thought that I couldn’t find it out. What atrocity? Is there a mother who won’t realize the touch of its child? My body burned . My child could not live on my milk. I didn’t deserve to keep my child alive through my life-giving milk . Let me die like this in this emaciated state. Why care if I lived or died? Why should I bother about the world? (from We too have Soliloquies)