Do Not Think, I Am Not Capable Of Thinking Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

I wake up but do not get up
As I sleep standing up
Sun rays make me understand
It is day now
And sun rays disappear to make me understand
It is evening now and soon it will be night
My owner reaches me just before it dawns
And milks me
Till the time it pains me
I show up my pain with a kick in the air
Ensuring that my owner is not hurt
I do not know why at all my mammary glands
Generate milk
Is it for my offspring or for whom?
I call him owner
Simply because he allows me to stay
Beneath a shelter he has erected
In front of his residence
At times he feeds me with some cooked rice
And when turns kindly with some bananas
He frees me and practically drives me out
I wander the entire day in the road
I do not have a specific route
My first direction is decided by my
Sighting something green nearby
I move that direction hoping it to be grass
Often it is not our edible; it may be paper or plastic
This I understand only after my biting it
And my saliva acting on it
I prefer to spit it there itself
Occasionally it happens I swallow that too
As stomach down under demands
I move around picking some grass
And some food leftovers
I manage to get water here and there
Often stagnant water from a car wash
Or spill over from gardening
Whether it shines or rains
I spend the whole day out under sky
But make it a point to go back to my shelter
With half filled stomach or even less
My owner at times springs surprises
By offering me to eat something
As I return home after sun set
He may give a bath too sometime
Probably if it occurs to him that I stink
He will try milking in the evening too
He gives me a kind pat if he is able to get some milk
I live so for quite sometime
With no one really loving me
But attending to me only in the hope
That I will give something back in return
Do not think
Me, the un-cared for cow,
Is not capable of thinking