MANGALURU: While ‘Gau Mata’ has garnered nationwide attention in the last few years, mostly for political reasons, a city-based advocate who steers clear from religious fundamentalism has silently been ushering a cattle revolution Every October, Dinesh Hegde Ulepady donates cows to the less privileged families so they could earn their daily bread. He doesn’t seek any publicity. His only condition is that the beneficiary must return the first female calf to him. He nurtures the calf and donates it to another deserving family the next October and the chain grows. Interestingly, these cows are Jerseys – a breed that is known to produce higher quantity of milk and fetches a good price in the market. The beneficiary is allowed to either use the cattle for livelihood or sell it to another agricultural family if need arose.“The happiness on the faces of those poor farmers is so gratifying,” Dinesh said, adding he took to such a charity for another reason – his mother. Since three years, Dinesh has been donating cattle and particularly in October as he has an emotional connect with this month.In 2016, his mother’s health deteriorated and in October she passed away. “Ours is an agricultural family. Before breathing her last, my mother enquired about the cattle at home. Those were her last words,” he said.Dinesh, who the media has covered previously for his simplistic lifestyle and inkling towards social service, decided to do something that could serve a purpose and also make his mother in the other world proud, and hence the donation of cattle began.“The month my mother passed away, I donated two cows. In October 2017, I donated five. This year, too, I donated five cows,” Dinesh said, adding the beneficiaries keep the promise and promptly call him up when the cow goes on to deliver a female calf.Recently, Dinesh also donated sheep to a tribal community in the district so they too could eke out a living. The condition, however, is the same. The first female offspring has to be returned so another beneficiary stands benefitted.“When the cow is increasingly seen as an object to stoke communal feelings by some and means of money-making by others, I am glad the cattle I have donated are really serving a cause,” he said.

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