Thursday, August 13

The Wild Wild West

The Bombay I've experienced in the past has been the people choked suburban trains,shabby skyscrapers,masses of people who seem to function like clock work and the oppressive heat and humidity but Goregaon(East) is different.
The Aarey Milk Colony of Goregaon doesn't get its name from a dairy that existed a couple of decades ago and got swallowed up by the ever expanding city but R and I discovered its because of the many non descript dairy farms which function there at present.
Lush green hills dotted with dairy farms and skyscrapers how wild is that?

Buffalos are like enourmous sculptures. Hollows and bulges and the skin has a wonderful patina.

There's a hierarcy on these dairy farms.Gopi takes care of ten buffalos and nine others like Gopi report into a supervisor. Supervisors report into a manager.

I learnt that there are a number varieties of buffaloes, identified by their horns. This one with the magnificent curly horns is a Katiawadi. A native of the Gir Forest in Gujarat and is capable of producing 30 litres of milk a day.This one has shorter horns and is a Dilli.

Small little pick-up autos like in the picture above transport milk to collection centres and dairy processing centres. The driver was thrilled I asked him to pose.

A dairy farm can have 500 buffaloes and every little lane seems to end at a buffalo farm. That's a lot of buffaloes and so much milk.I hope there's someone making Mozzarella with some of that milk.

Three days in Bombay ( Mumbai) was quite an education.

7 comments:

pRiyA said...

the pictures look terrific in BW, one gets to appreciate the shapes more this way, especially the head of the buffalo with its beautiful horns. wonderful post.

Maya Sara Matthew said...

Thanks Priya.The B&W has been inspired by Radhika and Bharath's work.
http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/radhika

Crayons said...

Hi Embellisher
I love these black-and-white photos. They are evocative of a place, but are also just beautiful in shape and composition. You might know that I live in America's dairy land. Drive out of our town and you'll see herds on grassy farms. We even have cows at the university!

So, congratulations on the trip. My **terrible** Internet service has kept me out of the community for a while. I hope I'm back for good. Thanks for your comment. I missed seeing your posts.

Maya Sara Matthew said...

Hi Caroline,Cows at the university is really wild and America's dairyland is Illinois isn't it?
Looking forward to your posts too, hope the internet connection holds up.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful photos! What an experience!

Chris Daly said...

beautiful pictures Maya. Thanks for a look into a world similar but so far away from mine.

Romi said...

Hey Maya! nice pics! could I use some of these images in my research? I will cite them..let me know:)

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