Amidst busy mundaneness, the cab of everyday journeys took the all too familiar turn at the dingy underpass with walls covered in peeling posters of bygone movies, plunging us into momentary darkness. I am not sure when I first saw it, it must have been days or weeks before. But on one particular day, I finally sat up and started actually seeing it. As we cross Cox town and take a right to join the Ulsoor lake road, there is a cow. A very ordinary looking desi cow in black and white with no particularly striking features. What is extraordinary is ‘where’ it stands — always in the exact same spot, every single day, from the time I started seeing it — smack in the middle of the road. Like a huge piece of rock that separates the flow of a river, she stands her ground firmly, unflinching, as traffic flows around her. No one honked at her or even attempted to coax her to the safety of the footpaths. I wanted to get a better look at her — she was not tied there, she was not eating from a pile of feed, she was just standing there, like it was her favorite spot in the whole world, like she’d rather be here than anywhere else. I wondered if people who tried to move her to the side of the road was met with a stubborn shaking of her head signaling her refusal to budge.This being an everyday affair, I had to click a picture to tell people that I was not making this up.
Sometimes, life can get repetitive as we get caught up in the hamster wheel of daily drudgery of 9–5 and it can be hard to differentiate the days, when even the position of the cow on the road appears to be the same everyday. This is a reminder, if that is you, to not shy away from or feel guilty for breaking out and taking a detour from your routine. Press pause to enjoy the low priority and the inconsequential things of today. Do that unusual thing that you like to do. As life flows around you on both sides, be brave enough to bend the rules a bit every now and then. Tomorrow you may go back to chasing your dreams and to your excel sheets.
