Today's millennials will be surprised to know that there was a time when almost 100% of households in India used to apply cow-dung (mixed and diluted with water) on floorings on a regular basis, to keep insects and germs at bay.
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That's because cow-dung is one of the rare natural substances which has antibacterial property and thus works as a natural disinfectant.
Interestingly, in most ancient homes, the floor itself would actually be made of a thick & dried layer of cow-dung, because it would have insulation property as well, which automatically regulated internal temperatures of homes.
This is something which modern science has been confirming in recent times, over the last few years, but was known to our ancestors for thousands of years!
Even till as recently as 1980s, several urban families also used to source a small quantity of cow-dung from the neighborhood cow-sheds and apply a thin layer of it on their floors regularly.
In densely populated cities where the logistics of cow-sheds were almost impossible, there were local entrepreuners who used to transform cow-dung into storable bars (by drying them in sunlight and cutting into cubes).
so that customers could purchase them from local markets, mix with water and use them as natural disinfectants.
However, by the 1990s, in the pretext of modernity, as normal flooring made way for marbles and tiles, and most importantly, western mindset replaced Indian thoughts, the tradition of cow-dung as floor disinfectant completely disappeared from well-off urban & rural homes.
Today, the practice is actually frowned & looked down upon by youngsters in families who don't realize that their own families just 2 generations ago had been promptly following it and reaping its benefits.
Hence, the practice is now confined only to a few households in India, especially in deep rural pockets and tribal regions, where the tradition is promptly followed almost on a daily basis even today.
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