{"id":10097,"date":"2011-12-05T18:12:58","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T17:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10097"},"modified":"2011-12-05T18:12:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T17:12:58","slug":"visit-to-the-bansi-gir-goshalla-ahmedabad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10097","title":{"rendered":"Visit to the “Bansi Gir Goshalla” @ Ahmedabad"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Basu Ghosh das<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday, December 1, along with Jasomatinandan Prabhu, ISKCON Gujarat Zonal Secretary, Acharya Dharmendra, famous (in North India) Vishwa Hindu Parishad (part time – he resides at Jaipur in his own temple) preacher and my “Sanskrit guru”, Acharya Samskritananda Hari (of “Kaushalya Pitham”, Baroda), we visited the “Bansi Gir Goshalla”, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n

The previous day we had been invited to visit this goshalla by Sri Chinubhai Patel, ex-Chairman of the Gujarat Government’s “Go Seva ayog” – “Service to the Cow Commission”. Sri Chinubhai is an ardent “go-sevak” (servant of the cows) and well know for this in Gujarat.”<\/p>\n

The goshalla is the private endeavor of Sri Gopal Sutariya (Patel), who is a rich “builder” (“construction businessman”) of Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n

He’s a “young entreprenuer” – he’s 36 years old – who spends four hours a day at the goshalla, looking after the 107 “exclusively” “gir” – one of India’s indigenous breeds of cattle – cows, bulls, calves and bullocks (just a few of them).<\/p>\n

Gir cows are known for being a good milking breed of cattle. They are indigenous to the Saurashtra region of the present Gujarat state.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the interesting features of the goshalla gathered during our visit there.<\/p>\n

1. Cows and bulls are “pedigree”. Records of their lineage have been meticulously kept.<\/p>\n

2. Records of the milk production of the present animals are kept, and records of the milk production of their ancestors are “in hand”.<\/p>\n

3. All cattle are fed fresh, green grass (no dry grass).<\/p>\n

4. Green grass grown at the goshalla is a special variety that grows upto 14 feet in height.<\/p>\n

5. Only organic cattle feed is fed to the animals, in addition to the grass mentioned herein above.<\/p>\n

6. Milk is being sold at Rs. 70 per liter by the goshalla (the local market rate is Rs. 25\/30 per liter). Ghee is also produced. I neglected to ask about the retail rate he asks for that.<\/p>\n

7. The goshalla has protected some cows and bulls that were slated for export to Brazil (where there is a sizeble population of “gir” cattle that were exported there from Gujarat in the past.<\/p>\n

8. Sri Gopal Sutariya promised to donate us – we have a 45 animal exlcusively “gir” goshalla at ISKCON Baroda – a 1 year old bull, who would become a breeding bull in the future.<\/p>\n

Pictures of the visit can be seen on the internet at:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/103360994652182030572\/BansiGirGoshallaAhmedabad<\/p>\n

or,<\/p>\n

http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/6ot83td<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Basu Ghosh das<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday, December 1, along with Jasomatinandan Prabhu, ISKCON Gujarat Zonal Secretary, Acharya Dharmendra, famous (in North India) Vishwa Hindu Parishad (part time – he resides at Jaipur in his own temple) preacher and my “Sanskrit guru”, Acharya Samskritananda Hari (of “Kaushalya Pitham”, Baroda), we visited the “Bansi Gir Goshalla”, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}