My favourite dairy farm at New Baneshwor suddenly closed down. I was its faithful client, inspired by its wise motto: dugdhapaan badhaun, madhyapaan ghataun (increase dairy products consumption, decrease intoxicant intake). The catchphrase didn’t necessarily augur well for the farm. The dairyman saw the contrary happening, and before his farm went belly-up, he chose to shut it down.

I feel at sixes and sevens when I overhear people bellyaching: fruits, vegetables and milk prices have skyrocketed! What about meat? Has its price reached rock bottom? Hardly! However, the same people can routinely be seen jostling in front of meat shops, even as it’s no hyperbole to state that meat shops in Kathmandu nearly denote ‘disease shops’.

Curiously, people tend to spend more generously on meat than on fruits, vegetables, milk and milk products even if one kilo of meat amounts to many kilos of fruits, vegetables and milky products that are healthier, equally nourishing and wherein no violence is involved. As an agricultural country, almost all the Nepalis have easy access to nature’s most nutritional commodity: milk. Wherever we go, it’s a common sight to see farmers rearing herds of cows, buffaloes and even goats for milk. Food scientists and nutritionists aptly call the milk ‘nature’s single most complete food’ as well as ‘nutritionally, the most nearly perfect food.’

However, the moot question is: if the ‘most complete food’ is within easy reach of an average Nepali, why does the same Nepali die at 60, that is three years younger than an Indian, 11 years younger than a Chinese and 19 years less than a French?

There seems to be a plethora of anomalies. For instance, look at the recent Dashain and part of the answer lies therein. More people were seen at holy sites queuing up to have their animals sacrificed than they would have waited to buy dairy products.

Ironically, many holy sites here are actually bali (slaughter) sites! This Dashain, I had the impression that we, the Nepalis, are the greatest butchers in the world. Consequently, the buck stops here: we may need to wage yet another war, that of milk versus meat, where we take pride in being the wisest farmers, not the greatest butchers.