Oil seeds and Cattle a comparison

We used to buy sesame oil and ground nut oil for use at home. We used to buy coconut oil for any medicinal purposes or for grooming the hair. Or at times,the tenant cultivator will bring the yield of sesame from the field. So we used to get the sesame dried in the open terrace and then take it to the oil press (old wooden one with a bull turning the mortar and the pestle remaining more or less motionless). As a young boy and also later a young adult I used to sit on the long arm to which the bull is yoked when the oil merchant used to put the dry produce (sesame, groundnut or coconut) into the press to extract oil. he used to put a little bit of jaggery into the press if it is sesame. He also used to have a small torch made of a stick with cloth tied around at one end and lighted. This he used to stick it into the press and he used to say that this would extract more oil from the produce. I graduated from the formal collegiate education in the mid 1970s and the hunt for a job started. Once I landed a job in a reasonably big city (Bangalore those days was not even comparable to present day Coimbatore in terms of size and population but climatically the best of places all round the year), the question of the oil press and the sesame, groundnut or coconut oils were totally forgotten. In the fag end of 1979,once I joined the bank, there was no turning back to the country oil press or the oils produced with a very high quality and the smell from the oil press.

The early part of 1980s saw the advent of the new types of oils extracted from various oil seeds and also rice bran. This onslaught was taken further with the advent of TV in almost every home post 1982 Asiad games. Slowly the sesame oil,ground nut oil and coconut oil lost shelf space to Soybean oil, Sunflower oil, Kharadi oil, cotton seed oil, rice bran oil etc. The TV adverts were targeting the gullible audience hitting them with ideas that the native oils like sesame oil, groundnut oil and coconut oil are not good for health and may be the reason for all cardio related diseases. This produced the mass hysteria among the population who immediately switched over to the imported palmolein, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, cotton seed oil, soybean oil etc. Once the market for these oils are firmly set now the goodness of the earlier native oils are being propagated with refined oils being marketed locally or imported. We as usual, fell for this gimmick and now buy the refined variety of the same oil that we were using unrefined for ages till about 1970s.

The early part of 18th century saw export of some of the cattle from India to the Americas. These cattle were from some of the best breeds which could withstand the tropical extremities of climate. These cattle were imported into the Americas both in north and in south. The variety came to be known as Brahman possibly due to the very high cattle ownership with Brahmans in the early part of 17th century. These cattle have a peculiar hump in their back and also produce a very nutritious milk which the scientists claim is A2 (these classifications were not known until very recently to many of us) which contain some of the best nutrients for growth. This milk is suitable for babies and also for aged and infirm. How the people of India were keeping the cattle? They used to worship the cows, use the bull for all the labour and also for mating for reproduction. Once upon a time not long ago, the cattle population was far in excess of the human population of the country. Slowly the west started the same strategy that they adopted for oil with the cattle. They are slowly killing the local cattle by adopting first increasing the meat and leather exports from the country, then using their agent PETA to get a ban on the local cattle sports. There is a ban on the cattle cart race and also the bull taming (jallikattu). The same western countries and their businesses and also their agents PETA do not want and also could not do anything with the bull fighting in Spain where the Matador kills the bull in the arena or the water buffalo racing in Thailand. These countries' local cattle do not pose the threat to the Jersey cows that the Indian cattle do. The corrupt politicians do not understand the agenda behind these actions of these agencies and they get carried away by the colour of the greenbacks shown to them. Otherwise, what is the need for the MOS in charge of environment at that point of time who was a politician from TN to grant permission to PETA in the first plac. The irony is his party is now fighting the party in power in central government on the same issue of bull taming.