Holy Cow

This photo was taken several yards from the house I'm living in, in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Mysore.  The giant cement dishes are placed throughout the city.  You put your garbage in (I had just put some mango peels in) and the cows graze at their leisure.  A few days later, for some reason, the garbage in the bowl was on fire.  I smelled the burning from the house and ran outside, but I guess fire doesn't elicit the same panic here as it does in the US.....

Right after I took this photo the cow actually nudged me with his head.  I think it was more of a head butt; a man standing nearby became extremely concerned.  I think that will be the first and only physical contact I will have with the cows here.  

Its very common not only to see free cows wandering in the street, but also cow-pulled carts in traffic.  I'm not sure where the line between worship and farm animal labor is drawn....I like to think all my years of table setting and dishwasher unloading might have been a masked form of holiness.