Cow waste isn’t exactly BS

Indian cricketers will receive lunchboxes with hearty aromatic food cooked at home by a beautiful lady. And along with it a handwritten note from her on how to face James Anderson.

Jokes like these started forming in the minds of some Indians after a newspaper wrote that Ravi Shastri, the Indian cricket coach, was in a relationship with the actress Nimrat Kaur. Some years ago, Nimrat had gained prominence with the film Lunchbox. Both individuals, however, denied the story. Nimrat, a reading type, tweeted an elegant putdown, referring to neither Shastri nor any publication and simply using the word “fiction”. Shastri, not one for subtlety, told a reporter that the gossip item was “the biggest load of cow dung”.

In a way, Shastri paid the report a glowing compliment. Cow dung is a valuable commodity in India, as in many parts of the world. It generates revenue worth crores daily, and has the blessings of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This year, the Swacch Bharat Mission launched Gobar Dhan, a scheme to generate income for villagers from cattle and organic waste and also to keep villages clean.


“Our farmer brothers and sisters in rural India will be encouraged to consider dung and other waste not just as a waste but as a source of income,” Modi said in the days after the Union Budget, in which the scheme was announced.

Some 300 million cows produce three million tons of output every day in India, according to statistics quoted by Modi in Mann ki Baat.

The waste — which costs about Rs 2 a kilo at its cheapest and more when it is dried and treated — is then used in myriad ways. It powers the growth of coffee beans, among other things. One day Shastri may be sipping his coffee and note, “Hmm. Rich taste, citrusy acidity and an aftertaste of chocolate, hazelnut and tabloid journalism.”

The traditional uses of dung — like in religious rituals, as disinfectant and an energy source — are well-known. Even tennis courts in India would be paved with waste in the old days, as Leander Paes told a suitably perplexed American media outlet a few days ago. (It is fitting that the controversial Paes’s own actions and pronouncements — like his last minute withdrawal from the recent Asian Games — have often been likened to bovine waste by peers.) What is interesting to note is dung’s growing acceptance in beauty and health products. An Indian startup named Cowpathy makes toothpaste and bath soaps in which dung is an ingredient. And presumably they aren’t the only ones to tap its potential.

On to the fifth Test in England, and hopes of an Indian scoreboard that does not make fans cover their noses.