Elza Holt

“Most religions seem to have decided pretty early on 'You know, we've go to do take action about that sex thing'. Somehow India too forgot the age of the Kama Sutra, Tantra and erotic carvings on temple walls. Even the Hare Krishnas try to tell us that Krishna was only spiritually making love to hundreds of cow girls at a time.   Nowadays it works like this: no one ever tells you the first thing”
― Tom Thumb, Hand to Mouth to India

“But logic never seems to get more than a few steps down the road in India before it stumbles into a pothole. While Vijay was happy enough to write off hundreds of millions of Muslims as sadists, he didn't seem to care enough to lift one finger to help the cow standing in front of us. She was busy spoiling potential clown acts by eating all the dropped banana skins on the street. But then while Vijay pontificated, she began to apply herself to the consumption of a plastic bag that had been dumped in the gutter. For some time the cows in Delhi and other Indian cities were found dead without any apparent cause of death. Upon investigative surgery it was found that their digestive systems had been clogged up with up to thirty kilos of plastic. Tens of thousands of evolution never required the cow to understand the difference between cabbage leaves and polythene. Until now.   But few Indian seem to see the incongruity of venerating the cow as the Holy Giver of Life and yet allowing her to die in pain by the roadside. Such a step would involve taking responsibility for the world around them. Perhaps it would even involve getting their hands dirty in work suitable only for the lower castes.”
― Tom Thumb, Hand to Mouth to India

“People who know nothing about India like to raise the subject of the holy cow as an example of the mysterious and inexplicable ways of the Mystic East. Because in America and Europe cows are seen as little more than milk factories and soon-to-be-steak-dinners; How typically superstitious for a country suffering from ,malnutrition and famine to prohibit the consumption of such an obvious food source.   The belief in reincarnation perhaps goes some way to explain the general vegetarianism of the Hindu (after all one could be eating one's own grandparents born again further down the food chain) but the real answer is far more practical: The cow is the only available animal to pull the plough in the countryside. To eat it would be suicide. Without the cow the field cannot be ploughed, nothing will then be able to be planted and the family loses its only source of income. Unless there be a passing purveyor of spare kidneys.   Most anthropologists now accept that most myth has its birth in a cradle of practicality. As such the vital role of the cow was elevated to the status of sacred. Drape a few garlands of marigolds around her neck and write her into a few adventures of the gods and Abracadabra - You've got a holy cow.   But”
― Tom Thumb, Hand to Mouth to India

“They weren't bad guys, just products of a society run by men and infused with rules to leave everyone sexually frustrated. Even in marriage sex in India is often just a brief, clumsy fumble in the dark, trying not to wake up grandma who's sleeping in the same bed.  ”
― Tom Thumb, Hand to Mouth to India