The Esteemed Milkmen of Yesteryears

 

Those were very simple but careful days. People had their names etched on brass, steel and aluminum utensils. The neighbors usually borrowed kitchenware from each other during weddings. So the post-ceremony retrieval of the items required a strong, unquestionable identification mark. They would also get a tattoo of one’s name and village on the arms to give a clue to their identity if someone got lost at a fair. I remember a little boy who got lost at Haridwar fair. His misspelled village name got him transported to a far off village in some other state. He was lucky to be delivered finally after the failed attempt to deliver him at the wrong address.

Those were also the days when the milkmen served as paramours to lots of work-beaten and bored peasant women. In the privacy of the barn, the milkmen had the luck to stare at them as they milked the cows or buffalos. Romance bloomed usually, followed by boredom-killing intimacies. In the drudgery of a hard life, it was a handy diversion. In the pre-dawn darkness, inside the barn, there was a good chance that the milkman provided some succor to the work-beaten peasant woman. No wonder, the milkmen tried their best to collect milk from all barns before the day broke. As most of the villagers, the males at least, slept peacefully and the peasant women already in the yoke of domestic chores in the brahma muhurat, the milkmen loitered around with a mischievous glee on their faces.

One was Khome Dudhiya. Reddish, thin, his mongoose face always clean shaven, he moved with lots of business in his role of paramour to a few peasant women. His cream-colored shirt and pants were always ironed to notify his hard-edged intent. He bestowed a few allowances to his special friends of the opposite sex. Firstly, he deliberately allowed them to mix water in the milk. He just took long, joyful draughts at beedis and pretended not to look as water turned milk. Now this bumper offer was too big to be ignored by the peasant women. It gave them, and still does, an orgasmic sense of relief to mix water to milk. Next, he gave them maybe a rupee extra for per kg milk. And when he was really happy, he would gift them pieces of cotton clothes for sewing salwar kameez sets. In this simple way, he kept on ferrying milk in his iron drums on his bicycle. It was a very successful life. It is proven by the fact that he was never thrashed by any of the irate husbands on account of his romantic inclinations.

The younger crop of milkmen, who now supply milk to households in the nearby town, also have their share of fun. While the earlier generation had fun basically with the sellers, the stylish young milkmen of the present times have goody-goody times with the purchasers in the town. Many urban housewives also lead a suffocating life within the confines of four walls. The rotund young milkman, whom they consider to be carrying a bagful of libido because of his milk diet, comes handy to beat the boredom. These young Romeo milkmen, as they ride their bikes carrying milk drums, carry a boyfriendly look as if they are going on a date instead of selling their milk. In comparison to the milkmen of earlier generation, these flunky milk carriers have to follow the reversed equation in one more regard: as a special favor to their love interests, they supply waterless milk at subsidized rates.