The Cow’s Milk Is For Her Baby Cow
“There is a man again, accused for sexual misbehavior, written with a giant headline in a foremost news paper. Sure, there is no woman, could ever violate, rape a man,” said opa Johan to his wife, “Why did he/she say, write, blame it’s a man, a male, instead of a scoundrel? Who is the person who is so prejudiced towards men and exposed all his sins towards the fair sex?”
“So must I bear unwillingly, involuntarily the atrocities committed by those scoundrels. I am ashamed being a man towards you and all women. If the goodness, generosity of a man is praised am I proud without having done anything good or being generous. What do you think if some one says, ‘there again a woman, a wife is caught in infidelity’? How would you feel as a wife?”
“But this is what I really meant to tell you. There’s a very large writing on a billboard in front of the Department Of Health, you know?
(translated from the Indonesian)
The cow’s milk is for her baby cow.
The mother’s milk is for her baby.
It’s as though saying: Too bad, how cruel, a baby drinking a cow’s milk intended for her baby cow, instead of drinking her own mother’s milk. And I think of myself, how impudent, I myself, a man, every morning drink cow’s coffee-milk. And I thought, picture a father cow, drinking a baby's mother milk.
Every time since reading that billboard, when I drink my coffee-milk I’m feeling bad as I think of the baby cow. Every time I eat rice, meat, fruits, gratefully, I remember, honor the grain, the lamb, the chicken, fruit tree, but I intentionally forget the little fool who is preparing a dish for me. Ha, ha, ha.”
So opa Johan teased his wife as he pinched her nose.
August 2000
November 2012
