Recent Comments

Feeds
« chocolate hills
aquarium »

clean / unclean animal

Posted on July 30, 2006 @ 3:29 pm by massimo | Filed under: animals, blog, india, people, wordpress

sacredcow india clean animal aynaku illustration adobe

A mild variety of viral gastroenteritis got me these days. So, all I can do is rest and drink lots of fluids; off course I abstain from eating any meat at all, including good fish. Due to the circumstances I am also reckoning well about clean / unclean animals, those that are / are not considered fit for food, for religious, cultural or health reasons… Cows are notoriously sacred in India. In today’s booming India, one can still see among rural people, the close relationship between cattle and their owners, who have high regard for their animals as individuals, as vital family-providers. Generations of Hindus throughout the centuries relied so heavily on the cows for all sorts of dairy products, the tilling of fields, and the fuel or fertilizer, that their status as willing “caretakers” of humanity grew to identifying them as almost maternal figures. Hence the strong resistance to killing and eating such close animal allies. Now days beef-eating has gained some acceptance in various parts of India, but only by those Hindus who are scorned by the others as being “extra-modern” or “over-Westernized”. By Indian law, the slaughter of cattle is banned and Hindu society considers eaters of cow’s meat as barbarians. Cows are sacred in India, but even they suffer from the extreme poverty: emaciated cows move about freely and safely, and seem to remind the foreigners how fragile we all are…

Illustration Friday’s topic is clean

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 and is filed under animals, blog, india, people, wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 people have left comments

Enjoyed reading that. And I think it is funny that the ads that are featured by Google include the The Texas Longhorn Cattle. :-)

Willie wrote on July 30, 2006 - 6:49 pm CEST

great clean lookin cow cute necklace

michael dailey wrote on July 30, 2006 - 8:18 pm CEST

Hallo, Max! Your beautiful cow remember me the sacrality of all thinks we can eat without thinking!
I love very mach eating parts of
cow, but my heart cannot!! I prefer
a good pizza! My best compliments!
For our religion, christian, we cannot eat, lo scrivo in italiano,
tutti i crostacei, dai gamberi alla mitica aragosta. Bibble!
ciao vanna

vanna wrote on July 31, 2006 - 10:49 am CEST

Yikes! Hope you’re back to normal soon. Not being able to enjoy a meal is really the pits. I enjoyed reading your commentary to go along with this illustration, which is top-notch. Wish I could see it bigger.

Amy Zaleski wrote on July 31, 2006 - 3:47 pm CEST

Oooh! I like the thing around the cow’s neck. Interesting way to link the illustration with the description.

Even more interesting to read it since I am an Indian :)

Because of B wrote on July 31, 2006 - 5:07 pm CEST

I hope you are feeling better soon!! Excellent and interesting post. But your illustration is gorgeous! Seriously fantastic coloring - I love the eyes!! I would love to have this on a t-shirt or something. I think it is just beautiful.

tiffini elektra x wrote on August 1, 2006 - 3:03 am CEST

your image is beautiful and I love it!!! i am sorry you are unwell and hope your tummy feels better soon. I noticed on vacation that the mosquitoes bit everybody but me. I couldn’t figure out why, when I got home my husband said it’s probably because I am a vegetarian! Hmmm food for thought!

valgalart wrote on August 1, 2006 - 7:55 pm CEST

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.


Comments links could be nofollow free.