The cow has been the hobby horse of politicians of a certain bent. (Representative image - PTI)

Recently Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat was left standing on one leg. Because not only did he put his foot in his mouth, he shoved one whole limb in the orifice.

At a function in Dehradun he said that the cow is the only animal that exhales oxygen. No issues here. Except Mr Minister cow isn’t the only animal to do so. Even humans exhale oxygen. All mammals do.

Not stopping there Trivendra Singh Rawat went a step further. By massaging a cow breathing problems can be cured and living in proximity to a cow can cure a person of TB.

At a function in Dehradun Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat said that the cow is the only animal that exhales oxygen. (Trivendra Singh Rawat/Facebook)

It is another matter that Times of India quoted a livestock expert saying cows emit methane which leads to depletion in the ozone layer and global warning.

The cow has been the hobby horse of politicians of a certain bent.

Back in April just before filing her nomination papers from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur told India Today TV that drinking cow urine cured her of cancer. She said a mixture of gau mutra (cow urine) and other cow products cured her cancer.

Her claims were dashed by one Dr SS Rajput who popped up to say he had operated on the sadhvi to remove tumours.

There were more gems in the same interview -- this time to control blood pressure. Again the cow saunters in.

If you rub gau mata from the back towards the neck she will be pleased. If you do it every day, your BP will stay in control, she said.

How can you stop a firebrand would-be MP in full flow? As if that was not enough she went a step further leading to more titters.

If you rub the cow from back to the neck, you will experience joy and the cow will also experience joy but if you rub her from neck to back the animal will feel uneasy. If you rub from back to front, your BP will be maintained. This is amrit [divine nectar]. This is scientific. A gaushala [cow shelter] is the best place for tapasya [penance], this website quoted her as saying.

Let the cow be

If the cow isn’t curing man’s many ailments, she is making the human race richer. Enter cow, the alchemist.

Researchers at Gujarat’s Junagadh Agricultural University claimed they found 3-10 mg of gold per litre of cow urine. They aren’t alone. Speaking to The Wire, a Dr Virendra Kumar Jain, owner of a cow urine therapy unit in Indore, said: The pale yellow colour in the dung, urine or milk of the cow is due to gold particles.

Aliens landing on the divine soil of our motherland would think we are a poop-popping, pee-drinking country. Cow urine and dung have been touted as having health-giving properties helping in the fight against asthma, leprosy, diabetes and cancer among others.

Some years back RSS was thinking of bottling cow urine as an alternative to Coke and Pepsi. Thankfully consumers thought otherwise and the drink hasn’t flooded the market.

One’s mind drifts back to the 1970s when a man of some political stature, a prime minister to boot, tried to sell the health benefits of drinking one’s own urine. Thankfully the idea fell flat.