vegnonveg

i wonder often...

the whole controversy (the way i see it!) concerning eating vegetables or eating meat (animals, fish,etc)... the whole veg. vs non veg. battle that often becomes a round table debate among friends and family... perhaps friends alone! Either ways, I find myself in "no mans land" as far as making a judgement goes: which is better- eating plants or eating both plants and animals!!

I proclaim myself to be a vegetarian.. I was a vegetarian when i was born, meaning that essentially my "brahmin" upbringing didn't really encourage the practice of eating from a kitchen that cooked meat, let alone eating meat!!(technically Im a "lacto-ova vegetarian" meaning i consume both diary and egg products but NOT any meat). Today, Im a vegetarian... what i wish to emphasise is there is a difference in me being a vegetarian Today than the vegetarian that I Was. Ideologically, i m a vegetarian.. and i realised the significance of it only very recently.

As I used to be a vegetarian early on and am one now, there was a period in the middle where i tried, to an extent some of the meats that were palpable- chicken, perhaps some fish and mutton..very little quantities... curiousity more than anything else. And its probably the genes but i never found it fascinating (tasty would be a better superlative here i suppose). In class 9(i think), i decided i would give up eating any meat anywhere... (not that i was eating lot of it...but this was just to firm things up a lil' bit). And consciously, I haven't touched meat ever since..... (there was more than one occasion where chicken (precariously) creeped in into my "vegetarian" food!!!!)..

very recently, while eating "egg biriyani", i chewed on a piece of chicken (again) and although im not paranoid about doing it (ideology and lack of intention-case denied!), it did raise a few questions...thoughts.... these, more or less have been in my mind for quite sometime.. and got piqued even more when i came to know that my best friend had just turned (back) to being a vegatarian (i was very happy for him!!and yes..i belong to the "support vegetarian fraternity"!!)..

im writing the next few lines from a very neutral point of view (or an attempt to be neutral atleast)....
i doubt there is anything wrong or right in this world..so having written that, how can one judge whether eating animals is wrong (which is what most vegans say... for whatever reasons)... ? once again, i visualise cutting a vegetable and popping it into my mouth; on the other hand, cutting a chicken and popping it into the mouth...somehow, there is some level of violence that enters the picture ( i won't deny 10% of prejudice..but only 10%!!). I should think human beings, when they were evolving... had to hunt and would've had to eat meat... the way i just described above...like animals....
tearing, gashing..... when fire evolved, the whole process of cooking (by accident) began... and yes, i guess that s where the whole culture of eating chicken 65 arose...

does a vegetable feel pain when I pluck it out of the ground and cook it and eat it?? perhaps it does.looking at it literally, it should..but i choose to ignore it.
For a non-vegetarian, either he/she doesn't cook (which means the pain is not felt or is completely ignored!! afterall, who would think a fish could feel pain!!)..or "they" simply choose to ignore it..out of habit. I can almost surely point out that a non-veg cook would've squirmed (a lil' atleast!) for the first time he/she had to handle butchering a chicken (or even just observing it)....would we do that to a pet? or a human(been done!) what do these observations imply? that humans choose to ignore or become impersonal to what appears or is undear to them... perhaps it is the simple and most basic law "survival of the fittest" (i think we tend to misuse that a little excessively, steering towards our own convenience)
...nothing else matters then.