Are the milkman’s days numbered?

Easterine Kire [dropcap]E[/dropcap]very day in Kohima, come summer or winter, the milkman was always part of the daily morning routine. This winter he was conspicuously absent from my mother’s house and other houses I have stayed at. I expected him to come in the door soon after the newspaper boy had delivered the dailies. But there was no familiar clanking of the milk can or the “Ama”, “Didi” or “Memsaab” greeting that always preceded his entry. At first I thought that he had missed a day. Or that the milk had gone bad. But when it continued for the next three days, I asked about him and my sister said that they had stopped taking milk from the milkman. The reason was that the milk was too thin. I felt quite sad at this news. My sister sounded so final in her decision. When I opened the refrigerator, i noticed they had stacked it with GO milk and Amul Taaza. At teatime they nonchalantly took out the milk carton and poured it in their teacups. They did it all so matter-of-factly. But I grieved inside and asked myself the same question that I pose here for you, dear readers and people who have lived during the milkman era in Kohima: Are the days of the milkman numbered? Is he going to be replaced by a carton of GO milk?I feel truly sad about this. Looking back I can see so many things we had taken for granted about the Nepali milkman. And now for many, he will pass into the annals of social history as one of the many manual services we have had to dispense with. Still, I don’t believe that diluted milk is a good enough excuse to stop the milk delivery. From childhood, that was a debate that my mother had continuously had with her milkman. Every once a week or once in two weeks, she would remind him that the quality of the milk had gone down. He in turn, would come up with some noteworthy excuse. Sometimes it was because the cows had been feeding on a new type of grass. Sometimes he would say that the cows had been drinking too much water. And so on. I was never sure who had won because the milkman would supply better quality milk for some days, but he would eventually go back to his old ways. It became a neccessary part of the dialogue between my mother and the milkman. In the early 80s, Mother decided to keep cows herself to supplement our diet with good milk. Others had tried it before and succeeded but only at great inconvenience and loss of sleep. Nevertheless she was convinced that she could do it. We kept nine jersey cows for a whole year. Every second day a jeep and trailer had to be sent out with the milkman to cut grass. When the milkman had his sick days, we joined the driver and went out cutting grass. As a result of this extra curricular activity of my mother’s, all of us have garnered knowledge on the types of grass, tree foliage and shrubs that are good for cows. We learned that cows did not consider all leaves edible. In fact, they could be quite picky in their feeding habits. We learned not to waste time and energy cutting grass that would only get a bovine glance or two, and be shoved away by impatient hoofs that would clearly show which variety they preferred. After a long year, we began to feel that our lives were no longer our own. They were regulated by the milking, feeding, calving patterns of our cows. Sure we were getting good milk in abundance but we were all overworked by the cows. Finally Father called a stop to it all. Mother agreed that it had not been such a great idea after all. We found an eager buyer for the cows and turned the cowshed into apartments for rent and they never lacked tenants in crowded Kohima. Now that his going from our lives seems final, I reflect upon the hard lot of the milkmen community in our hills. Their day begins as early as 4 am when they get up to feed the cows, milk them and get the milk ready to be carted to town. My former milkman came to the house at the ungodly hour of 6.30 am from the High School area, walking with heavy milk cans from door to door. The Nepali community from which the milkmen hail are a labour force that have been with us from time immemorial. They have been around as long as Kohima has been around. Yet they continue to be a community who are most vulnerable where their legal and human rights are concerned. I don’t want the milkman to become redundant in Kohima houses. There must be ways of educating him on providing quality milk regularly. There will surely be ways of getting him to keep his livelihood in an improved manner. Like many old Kohimians, I am reluctant to let go of a tradition that has been such an integral part of my childhood and adult years. I still don’t believe Amul Taaza and GO milk can adequately substitute the morning ritual of the milkman.