The startup that’s purifying India

It all started when Jai and Veeru went to a temple for prayers. “It was a normal day at the temple,” says Jai, “We were all just chilling at the temple, on our way back from a Goa trip. Suddenly, some dude gets out of the line and walks towards the idol. At first, I thought, wow, whattay bhakt! And then I realised, it was a female.”

“It was a female!” whispers Veeru.

As the woman perpetrated her malicious crime of offering prayers to the idol, shockwaves radiated through the crowd. The skies darkened, thunder resounded, lightning cracked across the sky and the temple bells started clanging wildly.

What happened next would change their lives. Jai and Veeru saw the all-male crew of priests trying to handle the situation as best they could. Because the woman was of menstruating age, the shrine had become ritually impure. As the priests explained, women’s menstruation presents big problems — not for women, but for others. The world is under constant threat from the potent, toxic energy of menstrual blood. Of course, we’ve all experienced this in our own homes. If a woman during her periods eats pickle from the jar, the pickles turn instantly into frozen oats. Chutneys turn to cheese, rotis deflate, and Marie biscuits mysteriously keep drowning themselves in cups of chai. But, most importantly, men and boys fall sick.

The problem, the priests said, is that women’s periods unleash a kind of self-replicating virus. All religions around the world have noted this effect — and no, it is not because religions were designed by men. Luckily for the world, our (male) ancestors had developed an antidote.

“Our ancestors were scientific geniuses”, says Veeru, “They treat one bodily-fluid with another bodily-fluid, and the effect cancelled out. Cow urine or gaumutra to the rescue!”

The temple had an emergency van full of the stuff on standby. The temple priests washed down the shrine, performed some rituals, and soon, everything was back to normal. Jai and Veeru soon headed back to Bengaluru, their heads full of the day’s events. It was when they stopped by the roadside to relieve themselves that the big idea came to them.

“We have a good nose for business; we immediately smelt the business opportunity,” says Jai. “The timing was perfect. It was a divine call of nature,” says Veeru.

After months of hard work, they are now one of Bengaluru’s hottest startups, and their device, CowPi™, is ready for launch. The device can be installed in a house, a temple or any male-dominated arena. It will scan constantly for dangerous threats (that is, women). Simultaneously (and this is where their product really kicks ass) it will release periodic sprays of cow urine on all potential male victims. It will form a pro-active, protective germi-shield around them. Future versions will sync with smartphones and smartwatches, so that men can get periodic status reports about their levels. “Social Media is big now, so you can even share your updates”, says Veeru, “We want to tap into the whole herd mentality.”

Initial market testing predicts that this will be a cash cow, but Jai and Veeru are keen to emphasise their ethics. They even went back to the temple to help the priests. Many were still in trauma. One of them said he felt he had failed in his divine duty of perpetuating oppressive traditions. Another confessed to having nightmares about women. “I see menstruating women”, he whispered, “I see them everywhere. Walking around like regular humans.” They all showed remarkable improvement after trying CowPi™.

CowPi™ comes with add-on emergency packs that can neutralise threats within a 1,000 square-feet radius. Within an hour, the entire ecosystem will revert to the default patriarchy settings. It is clear that CowPi™ will soon become No 1 in the market. “We live in a time when women and other minorities are asking for extreme things like equal rights,” the founders say, “We have a beef with such unreasonable demands.” By all indicators, CowPi™ will hark back to the golden ages when everyone was happy so long as they were straight men. Men will finally feel safe again.

Suchi Govindarajan works as a technical writer, and pretends to be a photographer. She blogs at www.suchiswriting.com