Here Comes the Hotstepper

Buffaloes walk the ramp in Haryana.

 

The ramp was thrown open for the best-shaped, best-looking and best-performing (or milk-yielding) bovine models. At a ramp walk of buffaloes in the country — organised by the department of animal husbandry, Haryana, in Jind — some 30 murrah buffaloes from across the state showed up.

 Transported to Arjun stadium from their villages for the “Murrah on Ramp” show, they fetched their owners cash prizes totalling Rs 2.2 crore. “We want to send out the message that Haryana’s murrahs are the largest contributors to milk production in India,” said Dr KS Dangi, director general of the department. 

The participating buffaloes were among the “best” in the state, having won several competitions over the years. Like Golu, a bull that won the national livestock show (which judges bulls on their masculinity, like alertness, stoutness of neck, and testicle size) several times. Golu’s owner, Narender, of Didwari village in Panipat, earns over Rs 5.7 lakh per year from his bull’s insemination. There was also Dhanno Rani, owned by Hoshiar Singh, a retired teacher of Singhwan village in Hisar. Dhanno is known as “Haryana’s beauty queen” for having won the state-level murrah beauty contest four times in a row since it began in 2009. At Murrah on Ramp, she came on to the stage in her shiny black skin (oiled for a week; hair trimmed and shampooed a day before), with a red belt fastened around her mouth, and the gold medals that she won in the past adorning her neck. 

The two-hour ramp walk was witnessed by about 20,000 farmers. Buffaloes, with their respective owners, walked up and down a sloping 80-feet-by-8 feet ramp for two minutes each, during which large screens showed the buffalo walking, with a commentary on its achievements. “We want to tell farmers that dairy is a viable occupation,” said Dangi. 

A true murrah, he said, has a thinskinned, muscular and jet-black body. The only spot of white is a two-inch tuft of hair on its tail switch. Its horns are so curly that even a 25 paise coin can’t pass through it. A female murrah should also have “good udder placement” and good milk yield. The highest recorded milk yield by a murrah is 31 kg in one go. The department holds yield tests through the year; state winners then contest at the national level. 

A murrah is costly. An average murrah, which gives 15 kilos of milk at one go, costs Rs 6,000 per kilo of the yield (or Rs 90,000). Beyond that, there’s no fixed rate. Dhanno, which yields 23 kilos at one go, costs Rs 15 lakh.

Beauty does come at a price.