In late October, there was a quite rare event in the ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Swami Goshala established by Srila Prabhupada in Vrindavana, India. A beautiful black cow named Arati gave birth to twin bull calves.

Not only is such an occurrence rare, but if twins are born, generally one is very sickly and weak and dies shortly after birth. As you can see in the photos, both are very hale and hearty. They are both dark like their mother and you can hardly tell them apart.

At first the mother was bewildered when one started to suckle, the other also came to suckle, but she butted him away. But gradually, she must have recognized the smell and she also accepted him and let him drink her milk. 

“Seeing these two lovely twin calves, it occurred in our minds to name them Lava and Kusha, after Goddess Sita’s twin boys who were born in Valkmiki’s ashram”, reports local resident Deena Bandhu Dasa.

Every day a stream of devotees visit the Goshala to see the two dark brothers and feed special cow sweets, made from fodder and date sugar, to the other cows and calves of Krishna and Balarama.