My experiences with vegetarianism

I don’t remember with how many people in my life I have discussed why one should be a vegetarian. But I do remember that I have never discussed this issue with any one before 2003 – the year in which I, for the first time, left Gujarat for pursuing my career goals. This is the year in which I personally saw or met people who ate hardcore non-vegetarian food. (I classify eggs as ‘softcore’ non-vegetarian food). I must declare (with pride) that I had never seen or smelled non-vegetarian food before I left Ahmedabad and moved to Chennai in 2003.

I was undergoing a company training in Chennai. Finding food was a big time ordeal for me. I do not eat onion or garlic. I could not find any food without onion and garlic in the company’s cafeteria. A then friend of mine observed me not eating anything in the cafeteria. He asked me, “You don’t eat here because both veg and nonveg food are cooked in the same kitchen?” I said that it was not correct and described the correct reason. But that day evening, after I went home, I thought if anything was wrong in eating at a place where veg and nonveg food are cooked together. Off course, I never had to think about this when I was in Ahmedabad where I guess 80% Hindus were vegetarian then and finding a non-vegetarian restaurant was difficult. After a little thought, I derived what was wrong for a vegetarian in eating at a place where both kinds of food is served. But on that very day, I decided that I would not eat at such a place.

I suppose after this day, I started having frequent discussions on vegetarianism with my friends and colleagues. I must admit my failure in convincing them what is wrong in eating non-vegetarian food. “Hindus shouldn’t eat non-veg” was not a valid reason for them. They say that in their culture eating non-veg is common. I asked one of my Maharashtrian friends to name a pure Marathi non-veg dish. He tried to give a few names. Some of the names had origin in English or Urdu or Arabic (like Chicken Tikka Masala or Kabab). And some were the actual animal names (like murgi). I did the same thing with a Telugu friend. He could also not name any. I explained them that their respective languages did not have words for the non-veg dishes because a few centuries back, they all used to be vegetarian. After the Muslim invasion and intrusion in India started in the period from 7th century to 17th one, some of the Hindus gradually started eating non-vegetarian food.

My friends also argue that plants and trees are also living beings like animals; that therefore if we eat the former, there is nothing wrong in eating the later either. Plants are definitely not comparable with the animals. They don’t have feelings and emotions. They don’t cry. They don’t move or speak. They don’t feel the pain upon being cut. If you eat a fruit, you are not killing the tree. The fruit will any way fall down after certain time. Or if you pluck them, they will be replaced by new ones. Science says that Jagdish Chandra Bose discovered the fact that plants had life. But I disagree. This was a known fact to the Indians thousands of years ago. Jain literature describes plants or trees as egindiya jeev i.e. the form of life which has only one sense. Animals (and human beings) have off course five senses. That’s why Jains, who are strict vegetarians, don’t eat roots (potato, onion, garlic, etc) also because if you cut the root the entire tree or plant gets killed.

After moving to USA, I observed that some (I guess, less than 0.1%) people here were vegan. Vegans are one step ahead of vegetarians. They don’t consume any animal products. Most of the Indian vegetarians in my view are very irrational. They don’t eat non-veg. But they do use shampoos, cosmetics and allopathic medicines which have animal ingredients or which are experimented on animals in a way that I can not even describe. They wear leather shoes, belts and keep leather purses & wallets. (Indians have been using leather products for centuries. But they would not kill animals for getting leather. There used to be a community called ‘chamaar’ which had specialized in making leather out of dead animals’ skin). Vegans don’t do any of these. They don’t even use dairy products. In India, I think, vegans can use dairy products and still remain vegan. The way the cows are treated in India is different from that in the rest of the world. Hindu Vedas describe a cow as equivalent to a mother. Therefore drinking milk of one’s mother still keeps one vegetarian. Treating a cow as a mother is not just in Hindu books but it is in their behavior. Hindu villagers who are a key ingredient in Indian dairy industry treat the cow as their family members. They first let the calves milk the cows and then themselves milk the cows for their own consumption or business. While milking the cows, they try to trouble the cows to the least possible extent. On festivals, the tradition of feeding the cows with grass has still not become extinct. But I fear that all these may not last for ever. With Indians following the materialistic western culture so hurriedly, after 3-4 decades cow milk will be placed in the non-veg category.

In my view, the primary reason for one to be vegetarian should be mercy towards the animals rather than the precepts of one’s religion. I advise every non-vegetarian to visit a slaughter house to see what kind of treatment animals get there. At least, watching a couple of PETA videos will also do the trick.