That does sound ridiculous doesn’t it..?? And the fact is,that it is ridiculous..!!…Coz their mere obsession with paper could only be amusing or at the most, annoying to me, but fear..?!?! Of course not…!!
That comes with its own story..!!! ( You aren’t surprised, are you..??
)Let us now turn our attention to two interesting scenes :
Scene 1
I owe this to the thambi friend of mine whom I have already introduced in this blog as the guy who told me to “Don’t use Bad Words da” (Aah…Man…if u are reading this, I never tire of laughing at you. Thanks for being so inherently stuck up in chaos..!!
).So one day my friend was cycling back from god-knows-where back to the hostel thinking about what jigs he could do in class to keep up his daily duty of kadalai (For those who are familiar with colloquial tamil, You don’t need me to explain this to you…As for the others, you could say it’s a reasonable synonym to “flirting”,…aur hindi bhaiyon, samajh lo ki ye apun ke baasha me laundiabaazi hai…aur agar ye bhi samajh nahi aaya…tho phir bas chup chaap g***d mara lo
..!!!!)…when he found a buffalo (not a cow, but close enough) happily (?!?) eating away at the grass (or atleast that’s what my friend thought it was eating..!!) and so he decided to try some fancy facial expression which would have the gals swooning over him ,( Uhhh..!!! Dude…Get a life..!! When will u come face to face with the truth…?? 
) on the buffalo itself expecting it to admire (?!) his “charm” (WTF..!??!).Well..the buffalo did react to his “charm”, by suddenly unleashing a frightening grimace and preparing to chase him down (Was it coz the buffalo had some “matter” to settle with him coz of his “excess charm”…?? I wish I knew..!!! )…
If my friend thought that his “strong legs” (?!) & his "fast cycle” (?!) would make the buffalo eat afterburn..He was mistaken bigtime… The buffalo was on his tail in no time at all…with a vicious stance pointing its nasty big horns (which my friend managed to notice, were more than capable of destroying his “perfect” @$$..!!!) right at…well…u needn’t be told, right
..??Unfortunately for him , none of the lucky persons who witnessed this one-of-a-kind buffalo escape sequence even gave a thought to help him out, and why would they…?? They were getting to watch an incredible movie style laugh-riot unfold right before their eyes…I wish I was there myself…would have rolled over laughing my @$$ out for sure..!!!
Meanwhile..things were getting really tuff for the “charming” hero…The horns couldn’t have been much more than 6 inches away from his @$$, when he sees to his joy that he is nearly there at the gate of our hostel…& so in an epic move that would have done Akshay Kumar & Ajay Devgan proud during their days in the 90s as flop-action-movie stars, my friend did the “daredevil” stunt (?!) of leaping off his cycle and throwing it to the side in a thorny area
…& running away into the hostel…The buffalo continued for sometime on the same course of impact it had taken & eventually realized that it had lost its “charming” target…& then (according to reports), abruptly gave up all of its hostility and started feeding on whatever grass & paper it could find…
Later that day when my thambi friend recounted the events to us, he expected us to commiserate him with sympathy. Unfortunately for him , though none of it was forthcoming...All he got was shameless rascals laughing it out at their friend’s plight…!!!!
That day…I wished out loud that I could get to see atleast one more of a similar cow/buffalo encounter…Should have been careful what I wished for…Coz the wish was granted in less than 2 months time….and I wasn’t exactly laughing when the smoke finally cleared…
Scene 2
Me & my mallu pal Sriram were at the Pearl tea shop…But since both were well aware that with the big gang of cows around us tonight, tea wouldn’t be the best bet to see us through to hostel, alive, we played it safe with a pastry each…
So we were just laughing talking of some arbit g***du joke when we notice that a cow was looking at us pretty sternly as if we had just mothered his mate [assuming the cow was a “he” & was also not gay (unlike a couple of dogs I once saw in “action"
), if it was a “she”, then…hmmm…donno what would get her so charged up..!!!!].So..we decide to play it safe & walk away gently..Coz we anyway had nothing to fear…We dint carry any paper..& cows don’t go for cakes( Or so could be safely assumed)
And what does the cow do in response to our withdrawal..??
It charges at us at full speed…!!!!!!!!!
Eating cakes was no more our priority, I was too scared to death to realize just how much panic had been stirred up amongst all of the losers who had gathered around the tea shop, & also when exactly I had thrown away my cake in a fluid motion…
This was all about survival..& I wasn’t gonna be rested in peace..much less coz of the actions of a mad cow..!!!!
Many encyclopedia & informative books will tell u that the top speed that can be achieved by an average cow is higher than that of an average man…What it does NOT tell u is that cows can also accelerate upto that higher speed much quicker than a man…Boy oh boy.. Did I get a quick lesson in that when the cow seemed to catch up with us in a real hurry…& was getting too close for comfort..!! (Comfort..!?!? WTF..!?!?) & Then I remembered how my thambi friend escaped from his mess & so change my direction and sprint at full pelt…& guess what…It worked again..!!!
The cow kept on chasing Sriram until he also figured out that a mere turn would fool the cow…& when the cow lost sight of both of us…He/she again lost all hostility in a hurry & turned to some bakras with paper cups…
However, in my maniacal sprint of fright, I had a hard fall on the paved surface outside the hostel and although, pavements aren’t as rough or abrasive as…lets say..a stony field, they are still considerably harder,and the blunt edges of the pavement were very unforgiving to my leg that day…I had bleeding wounds across my knee, but all that paled in comparison to what had happened to my foot, a big chunk of epidermis tissue had come off entirely off my foot. It pained like hell, bled like a faucet and looked..uhh!!! lets not even talk about that..!!!
Though its been nearly one & half years since I had that encounter & that fall.. the wound on my foot where the skin has peeled off ,still remains as a permanent mark to remind and teach me that
- Cows are really fast…Don’t race them on..!!!!
- It is not just paper that drive cows mad…It could be anything…Don’t mess around with gaai log..!!!
- And, most importantly, cows are blind to direction changes when in pursuit, if u are being chased by a cow, don’t try to outrun it..Coz u wont be able to…Revert to a change in direction..!!!
Believe me, It isnt very flattering to be laughed at by friends after u have been scared to death and have just had a lifelong scarring fall… (Although looking back at it…It was a really amazing experience..!!) I now realize what my thambi friend must have felt..
And that , my friends, is the reason for my morbid fear of cows….Ever since that day, I turn into a scaredy-cat whenever I see a cow (esp. if its within the NITT campus) get too close to me…
I don’t say this with pride…Coz there is no pride to be laughed at, right when u were impressing everyone with ur eloquent words, just because u have been frightened to death by a cow who wants to take away the paper cup in your hand… !!!
But well….things don’t always remain the same…
On my last day in my college, I finally decided to clear the labyrinth of paper & old books from the spidery crypt that my room had become. The ward boy (who, if rumour is to be believed, is in fact a eunuch/hijda/chakka 
) had come earlier to tell me that I should call “him” (well…I guess that’s the closest pronoun I could use for him ) when I am disposing of all the old paper in my room…
And so…I took it all out…Old newspapers, All of my classnotes (which,until 5th sem had been a lifeline for many…), all my question papers, answer sheets, drawing sheets, Xeroxed materials, brochures, envelopes, old & forgotten letters and a great deal more of papery junk,all were dumped before my room…& then…beyond the hostel …I could see….a cow, not looking menacing or intimidating, but foraging around , looking for…could it be paper..??
I looked at the humongous pile of paper…& began going through a few options in my head…
By giving away all the old paper to the ward boy, I would help him & perhaps some other scrap dealer some money…People would also say that I had contributed in recycling of paper, an eco-friendly and economical measure.
But hey…I have spent two months during my summer internship in a recycled paperboards manufacturing mill (Could it be coincidence, paper & cows..all over again..!?!?), and I have seen enough to know that manufacture of recycled paper is neither as “economical” (the factory I worked in, was making losses) nor as “eco-friendly” as people think it is ( I was working on decreasing the effluent losses)…
I know, that it no way justifies the cutting of trees to manufacture paper, But I wouldn’t let go of this chance to complete the food chain as nature had ordained it to be…& without giving it another thought..I went with all of my paper and dumped it before the cow…
The cow then looked up to me with a look which was so pure, so innocent and seemed to ask ..“Is all of this, really for me ?”
To suggest my approval...I backed off & seated myself comfortably on a make-shift seat. Not to look a gift-wrapped (Quite literally) paper meal waiting in the hot sun, the cow came down hard & merciless on the paper…
Sitting there & watching the cow, I found an odd sense of comfort in knowing that all of my newspapers, writings, drawings, all of the exam papers where I had scored so heavily had not got lost in some other human dealing…But had helped feed a poor creature which had terrified me for so long for no fault of its own. (But hey…when I think of that painfull fall, I still say it was the bovine’s fault..!!! 
)
Pretty soon…two more cows joined the feast ..But there was enough to go around for all of them & so, none was denied a truly gourmet meal…
Eventually the ward boy came along, horrorstruck at seeing the cows eat the paper. He shooed them away & managed to salvage a sorry fraction of all that I had gifted the cows…
He then looked at me with a savage delight, hoping to find an affirmative to his shooing away of the cows…But all he saw on my face was a wicked smile mocking his puny efforts…he knew…he knew right then…It was all my doing…&amp; he had been too late…!!!
It was this encounter that shall perhaps remain my last with the cows at NIT Trichy…
Maybe the Cow Gods will bless me with salvation, so that I may be freed of being haunted by the most frightening cows on earth, for my noble deed in feeding some of their own…
AMEN..or rather…. MOOOOOO…!!!! 
