Two securitymen stand guard at the khatal’s entrance gate, with batons in their hands, ready to chase away the intruders.
Sources in the group of the veterinary doctors who examine the cows regularly revealed that the RJD boss relaxes in an air-conditioned room on the second floor of his farmhouse whenever he comes to Patna.
He also inspects his cows along with the veterinarians and his loyal but apolitical workers.
“He lived in his room like a maharaja (emperor), drinking tea made in pure milk and eating curd when he came here in early April,” said a vet compounder.
The security and aloofness of Lalu’s mansion — 500 meters south off the Bailey road in the Danapur area — shares a lot of resemblance to that of Osama bin Laden’s house at Abbottabad in Pakistan.
Lalu and his alliance partner Ram Vilas Paswan often used a man named Khalid Noor, a lookalike of Osama bin Laden, to attract Muslim voters at public rallies.
Khalid grew long beard, wore turban and headgear to get that bin Laden look and attract curious eyes.
The high security for the cattle at Lalu’s house is nothing surprising.
“Khatal ke bare mein kucchh mat puchhiye, yahan se chale jaiye (Don’t inquire anything about the cowshed. Go away),” remarked the security guard, looking like a pahalwan (wrestler) in his stentorian voice. “We did not know that the cowshed belonged to Lalu Prasad.
“Earlier, we knew it belonged to Kanti Singh, a former Union minister and RJD leader. None of us are allowed inside,” said a local resident.
Anwarullah Khan (50), who owns a cowshed — Azad Khatal — barely half-a-kilometer from Lalu’s cowshed, refused to speak on the RJD boss’s assets. Talking about the khatal business, Anwarullah said: “Fodder now costs Rs 8 to 10 per kg while the feed costs Rs 18 per kg. One is required to spend somewhere between Rs 100 to 150 per cow to feed them per day.
“In case a cow falls ill, it breaks the back of the owner for the doctors too have raised their fees.” Anwarul said he too has reduced the number of cows in his khatal from 65 in 1990s to only 19 now.
Anwarul pointed out that cow milk was selling at Rs 26 to Rs 28 per kg, making the khatal business a loss-incurring one of late.
“I do not know if Laluji owns a khatal and if the number of cows there has diminished sharply. If at all he has a khatal and he is keeping less number of cows, it is because of the diminishing return in the business,” Anwarul explained, showing his horses and dogs that he had been breeding to substitute the cows gradually “in a phased manner”.
Although he never allowed the press to enter his new khatal, Lalu occasionally took his friends to see the farmhouse till the time he was the railway minister.
After the Assembly poll debacle last year, the RJD boss has stopped inviting people to his Patna residence.
The RJD boss still loves to talk about his childhood experiences of riding on the back of buffalos and herding cows, while addressing public meetings.
Recently, he asked yoga guru Ramdev to “justify his birth in the Yadav community by selling milk rather than teaching yoga and selling medicine”.
But Lalu seldom shares any details about his current bovine fleet.
Sources revealed that Lalu’s khatal has been supplying milk to Hotel Maurya and other big hotels and restaurants in Patna.
It does not cater to the local residents.
