For years while living in places other than India one had to face questions about what one eats, and why one does not eat this or that. All that was, one thought, part of general curiosity and seeking information, thirst for knowledge of the world cultures and what the other person thought, how they lived.
Never occurred to wonder why
everyone not from India questioned why India has something against eating cows,
and why India allows them to be as free as humans to roam about in towns and
cities - just thought they did not understand.
Now, thinking over by turning
tables, it is clear. If your values are war and taking lives and things that
belonged to those you killed, your precious species are horse and dog, and
anything else that can kill you is to be revered too. That is when you are
unlikely to understand respect for species that give and sustain life in another,
but are less use in war than in civil life - cows, moms, grandmothers,
.....
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Being vegetarian should not have to be
explained any more than such life choices as wearing cotton, wool, but not
leather. Few people today wear leather except as shoes, and that is going out
too. A good many wear a variation of what was called sneakers in the beginning
when they were introduced, and today they have evolved and exploded into a
mind-boggling variety of specialised activity oriented different footwear. Fact
is they are much more comfortable than any other footwear, though I have been
fond of pumps until I got used to this comfort, and still find them elegant -
but now comfort and health take precedence.
Still, even when I was wearing pumps and even
if I could have afforded it then, I doubt I would have particularly gone to
spend exorbitant amounts on shoes, either a la prep - the ultimate prep being a
small street somewhere in central London, as usual - or any other way, say, a
fresh baby croc or something. Now everyone can understand that it is not to say
I love crocs - who can? They are scary and not even likely to evoke anyone's
admiration, and I always felt that those who are making much of them would do
so with any orphan that did not get any coddling from anyone. Which might be a
virtue, but that amounts to this - if you don't want to take life of something
or someone it is not necessary you are fond of them. Converse of course is a
different story - if you like something or someone then to kill that for your
pleasure or even need has to be a question about your philosophy of life.
I am also with someone since last decade and
more who does not approve of leather or silk used in any forms but does not
impose that on anyone else including me - and I still have leather wallets,
since it is difficult to substitute them with some other wallet of good quality
and durability, it is not easy to say the least. If denim would be available it
might be an obvious choice, but it is not common. And silks are simply too
fabulous to avoid, but one can make statements by buying only those that don't
need killing to obtain the cocoon, which is quite possible - just more
expensive. Avoiding silks in India is to give up all the beauty of walking
museums of art everywhere - the women in silks, that is, with all the variety
of colours and weave. Not that cottons are any the less beautiful, and then
there are the very precious weavers with their expertise too, dependent on
their wares to be marketed, or else a great part of India might be extinguished
- no, if anything needs conservation this is high on the list, all the ancient
crafts of India that survive and live today with all the beauty.
I have found furs attractive too, not always
but sometimes. Today there is a big movement since last nearly three decades to
ban furs, and there is some truth in it being linked to wildlife concerns,
since most of the creatures - the beautiful ones that the attractive furs come
from - are not reared large scale on farms (or else furs would be far cheaper
and far more affordable for everyone). Not that when someone describes the
torture of farm-reared fur creatures I can react "oh that is all right, as
long as I get the fur" either. But the whole point is sort of away, partly
due to there being hardly any need of fur in most places in the world, and it
being either naturally or kept artificially very high price an object to posses
and wear; and even if you have that much money, give a thought to how many
orphans, how many poor might get a meal for a day, and resist the price.
When one lives in the remote arctic regions
though, say Siberia, and lives with nature rather than commerce with humans
most of the time, then it is a different story. Few do that, and wearing furs
came to be a way of life only because it was much needed in the winters when
the lifestyle did not include central heating, much less artificial fibres.
Then, hunting involved a danger and the hunter and hunted were on par much of
the time, too. Before rifles made it a non-sport it was a mark of bravery to
get a major predator, and not lose life in the process.
And need of non-vegetarian food too belongs to
the same - the cold making it necessary to consume food that gives warmth more
and longer, and short seasons of harvest making it necessary to supplement even
stored grains with sustaining nutrition or else one would not survive the cold
winters, especially the young that need food not only to survive but also to
grow. I was told the story of a family with identical twins age seven that
shifted from India to cold part of Canada, and how one child observed and
realised he should eat like his peers and his parents agreed and he grew well,
but not the other one who could not bring himself to do the same. The latter
suffered from problems of various sort since he was simply not getting enough
nutrition to survive and grow and also fight cold.
If there was another reason for the difference
in growth and health problems of the one who remained vegetarian, it is
possible; it is quite possible that the doctors were biased and did not look
for the real cause - but then again who would be willing to experiment with
children? And as for animals they have no possibility of switching diets that
easily, any shift from their natural way of life affects them adversely. Recent
problems with cattle was largely due to the unnatural horrible feed they were
given, for an example; for another various others - cats or chicken and other
fowl - are used to eating certain natural grasses and such when left to nature,
that they do not get the needed elements from otherwise as housebound pets or
caged fowl and suffer consequently.
So it is not possible to experiment with
animals and children and arrive at some universal conclusion - and what for?
Not that the effects of diet are unknown, far from it - Aayurveda
(Life-Knowledge), Indian medicine, evolved over centuries and millenia of past,
is a system that involves knowledge of diet and lifestyle, and effects of
intake on body; Indian (indigenous) cuisine is inseparable from inseparable
from Ayurveda, as is the whole lot of various parts of lifestyle - massage,
oiling of hair, application of ointments for problems. It is unlike allopathy
in that there are universal principles but individual treatments, depending on
person and other factors around the person.
So vegetarian diet is not prescribed for
everyone either, and different people traditionally have evolved different
habits according to the regions they have lived in, and often ancient
traditional occupations, due to effects of various foods on body and health on
the whole. The first needs little explanation - what grows naturally in the
region one lives in is what nature provides, and when it provides is what is
good for health to have it at the height of season. It is only a variety and
temptation or luxury to do otherwise but not wise to make it a lifestyle, as a
rule.
India being a large country, this amounts to
well over a dozen different cuisines evolved naturally through all history,
even apart form those of the various conquering and occupying ruler from
abroad. Most of the indigenous cuisines are not usually seen or available
outside India in restaurants, and within India not so commonly in regions other
than their own; what is commonly known abroad as Indian food is what is
commonly served in restaurants there and it is primarily the rich Mughal (Farsi
name for Mongols, who conquered and stayed on, to rule for a few centuries and
to live on here afterwards) cuisine, itself having absorbed central Asian
influences on the way to India, combined with robust Panjaabi (Punjabi) cuisine,
adapted finally to local needs or whims. Few other varieties are served in
restaurants - or at least were when I saw, in U. S. or in U.K, but if you tried
Southall, or one of its various avataars closest it your home, you might find
some variations, in not so expensive places where you might see more of genuine
Indian gourmet and less of big spenders. Dosa or idli, for instance, might be
around; those are of southern origin from Udupi, ubiquitous in India and
equated with southern food in north, though the equation is far from correct.
Home cuisine is not that rich, even in
Panjaab; there it is richer than many other regions but not as much as
restaurant stuff. The reason for this is that guests are offered better than
everyday, from heart; and how can one serve any less than the best one can
offer a guest? So it is rich in cream and so forth. At home, spices are used in
just the right amount, sparingly, and so is butter and its various avataars -
cream, ghee, yogurt - even in Panjaab or that other rich cuisine, Aandhra.
What has occupation - traditional or otherwise
- to do with it?
Occupation is an integral part of life, as
every adult would know. If you do work and not merely pretend to do so it
affects your life, your mind, and body and health as well. If anything affects
you in a way that interferes with work, one has to give up one of the two; in
case of a diet anomaly that is obviously what needs to be done without. That is
obvious. It is equally obvious that certain effects of food, such as anger and
heat due to eating certain foods and living in tropics where there is no
dissipation of those, are only suitable to certain occupations and obstructive
in others. Certain foods produce an effect that might be soothing or calmness
or lethargy, depending on various circumstances. Coconut is soothing and cool
for tropics but not for colder climates during winter, where one had better use
mustard oil instead, and what we call "garam masaalaa" which is
literally "hot spices", a combination that produces heat within,
which is to say combats effects of cold and is unsuitable for summer. When I
lived in northeast U.S. I found myself really wanting certain foods depending
on seasons - line juice with salt and pepper (and jaljeera,ooooh) in summer,
and chhole in winter - an in really cold weather, an omelet the way I learned
from various people there, with tomatoes and mushrooms and cheese, which is as
far with non-vegetarian food as I could get near to without having to ask
myself not to react in an unseemly way, without having to put a wall within to
block the natural feelings.
Getting to eating an omelet was no small deal
for me. My mother always told how finicky I was even as a baby and in spite of
all her trying to feed me a boiled egg, since it would be more
"nutritious" (there was no other reason, we were traditionally
vegetarians and any suspicion to the contrary would have driven away most of
relatives and so forth from ever visiting us, but the parents experimented away
form home and liked it) during the northern cold weather. She was trying once
as I was less than four and Sgk, less than a year old, sitting next stared and
stared until mother asked her, what are you looking at? She pointed, so mother
explained it was an egg, and asked if she wanted it. Mother was amazed at her -
she finished the whole egg and had no contrary reaction. To the day we are
split even in the siblings, first and third were always of delicate system and
moving vehicles made us puke as do certain smells wish we could; the other two
eat all they possibly can without being Chinese.
Mother asked me to try to learn, and I tried
all I could until I realised there is no need to torture myself, and it is
never going to happen that I would be hungry and want to eat any food other than
vegetarian. And since I was not living in a place where there was any problem
procuring foods suitable nor had it affected my health adversely, I stopped the
effort. Living in India, in Europe or in even the coldest parts of U.S. with a
home where one could cook, it has never been a problem. It can be a problem
only when one travels and the local cuisine is heavily non-vegetarian, but if
one is willing to eat vegetarian food of other than one's own tradition, it is
quite possible to manage.
I have not had to live in a place where eating
non-vegetarian food would be necessary or inevitable - say, Siberia or
Greenland or Antarctica, where little or nothing grows, and one does not wish
to spoil those places with modern facilities for the purpose; in tropics where
earth is plentiful in producing food if only one knows how and when and where
to find it or to sow and harvest it, and while U.S. is not all tropical it is
still true of the land.
It is funny, though, that the first and last
question people always asked is not about vegetarian food per se, but only
about cows - cattle, rather - and funny because it is not as if they are there
for plucking of a tree any more than other animals. I have tried to explain in
terms of asking back why those of Europe would not consider eating a cat or a
dog, or horse, but intransigence in the ones asking and arguing could only mean
that there was an effort to break down the spirit of a person of a culture
other than their own. No one asked in Europe, though those asking
intransigently in U.S. were not only European origin they were visitors from
Europe. They always found their own sensitivity towards cats, dogs or other
such natural, and had no intention of considering another another culture that
might have other sensitivities. One, an east Asian, went on until I was
exasperated and asked if in exactly the same circumstances that he insisted we
in India should eat cattle, he would eat his family; that stopped that
conversation.
Chinese cuisine has no milk, no butter, no
cheese or yogurt. We not only have them but it is the most integral, the most
precious part of our food, diet, cuisine, everything. Our fields are tended to
with help of oxen and so is all of the preliminary transport at village level,
carrying things to and from market, transporting people. The oxen often bring
the cart home without anyone awake to drive them, if the driver is exhausted
and fallen asleep. The cattle live in intimate proximity next door and the cows
know people. My grandfather had large number of them, but one cow in particular
would never let anyone other than my grandmother touch her to milk her, and was
only calm and willing to allow milking if grandmother went. And more than
anything it would be sheer ingratitude, not to mention folly on supreme scale,
to kill one who gives milk as a mother gives for one's own baby and to destroy
the source of economical base, respectively. We don't wish to end up with no
milk and so forth and we are neither where they could survive theft and
slaughter on large scale nor where it is impossible survive on what the earth
gives, supplemented by what the cow gives without being harmed.
If you don't like or love or find any
gratitude in your heart to your cows that is entirely your lookout - our cattle
are more precious, more beautiful, intelligent and sensitive, and we value
them. In fact most single men go eat a burger when they arrive on other shores
and explain it by saying "their cows are not holy". We do not
browbeat or bend anyone's elbow about why they do not eat pigs or other various
objects either.
Vegetarian ethos has developed over millenia,
and it was not always so; it is therefore all the more right and precious at
least for us, if not for the whole planet as a more viable way of survival for all
- which it might very well be for all that. Pound for pound it takes much more
to feed a non-vegetarian of U.S. than a vegetarian of India in terms of how
much corn harvest goes into feeding pigs and so forth to get you your bacon
while many, many more people in India survive on that amount of harvest of
grain.
Once waiting in the line for supermarket
checkout counter I looked idly at a magazine cover and wondered why anyone
would find it attractive to look at a huge cup of chocolate with a more huge dollop
of cream on it, and suddenly it was clear - a predominantly red meat diet gives
you all the salt and so forth you need and you need the sugar you are not
getting, and that is even without the cold winter when one wants to eat all
those apple pies, cherry pies, etc - whereas a vegetarian gets natural sugar
through the food and needs salt and spices to add. Our fun food is not cake, it
is peas-and-potato samosa (with appropriate spices) and its many, many cousins.
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Someone asked how one could be vegetarian and
use leather or fur. Really it should be asked the other way round. Obviously if
you need leather to save your feet effectively from thorns and so on, you don't
need to kill any animal in youth or productive age, and those that die of old
age or accidents or even disease are good enough - but are you going to wait
for roadkill to eat non-vegetarian food, or eat those animals that die of
disease? Don't even think of it.
As for those that love cats and dogs and horses
and eat cattle - you are just a casteist, and you are creating castes within
animals. Worse actually - you kill those that give most as a mother would
(cows) or help you shoulder burdens of farming (oxen) as your family men -
father, brothers, sons - would, and keep those that despise you actually (cats)
or are more or less servile (dogs). Not that we wish anyone to harm those
either, in any way.
Incidentally - haven't there been incidents in
various countries, in U.S. and in Europe, of pet dogs mauling infants and
children?
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Never
occurred to wonder why everyone not from India questioned why India has
something against eating cows, and why India allows them to be as free as
humans to roam about in towns and cities - just thought they did not
understand.
Usually
it was colleagues in US who were from everywhere in the world, and we were
usually asking about one another’s countries, expanding our horizons, and so on
– so it was merely part of the natural conversation. It only got tiresome when
someone refused to hear of any reason for not eating a particular species, and
I was too polite to remind them some of us did not eat any meat at all, which
was mostly true on a day to day basis for most of India, from choice and health
needs rather than mere poverty or unavailability. After all it takes much less
trouble and wherewithal for poor to let animals breed and feed on their own
roaming about and eat one every so often. But a developed cuisine based and
connected to medicine in an integral way, and it all connected to the very
fabric of life, unlike the separation of religion and medicine and food of west
and generally those that asked the tiresome “why don’t you eat …”.
Then
it was visitors to India – and those that had visited that I met in their own
home countries, or in India – that asked different questions or expressed
surprise, about having seen cows roaming about in cities and towns of India,
freely. It took a while to understand they were holding back their disapproval,
until someone asked if anyone could grow a mango tree anywhere. Why not, I
asked. He had no answer, but it became obvious on thinking that he thought
fruit trees belonged in orchards far away from where people lived, as they do
in most of US.
But
we had been to Europe where things are a bit more natural and one not only sees
fruit trees in yards around neighourhoods, and lining roads smaller than
highways, but also hears about what qualifies a man – and planting an apple
tree seems to be part of the qualification in some places, along with growing
sons. It takes a man to have daughters and plant a cherry tree and feel confident
of his manhood.
This
brought back the cows roaming and connected – the visitors were not
appreciative, or merely wondering; and also, I began to wonder if they had not
seen animals roaming about in cities anywhere else, including their own home
countries, home towns. We had not only seen pets – especially cats – roaming about,
we had been officially warned in driving school to the effect that in a housing
neighbourhood or towns in general one might come across a cat suddenly crossing
the road, at whatever speed the cat chose, so it might spring suddenly or
saunter across at leisure, and one must mind not to hurt the cat.
(Why
we needed to experience a driving school after having driven across US is, in
some places in Europe a driving license from another country is only valid for
a short while, and one must do the whole course to qualify for the local one,
in some places – expensive, time consuming, and the driving instructors are not
above treating one like a free taxi driver while doing their errands and
putting one down to remind one who is paying whom, before one realises a lesson
is not an hour but only half that, and one was being taken literally for an
expensive ride and being cheated on the whole.)
So
I wondered what was wrong with cows instead of cats – or rather in addition to
cats, dogs and all sorts of other animals one may see in cities of India, and
why they had not remarked about those – horses, donkeys, camels, elephants,
monkeys, and more. Why only cows excite them became a question. And the answer
was, lack of respect for the species they viewed as source of food and not as
life, much less as anything more.
Also
it became clear they did not see that another way of life and point of view
could be, were, equally or more valid. After all anyone of US ought to be aware
of the law and practice re horse thief being hanged in west until recently, and
the horror it evokes if someone is discovered having eaten or served a horse,
or dog or cat. So why such extreme reaction , such insistence on changing
others, when they come across a country where a culture of regard, of reverence
for cattle is ingrained deep in the nation’s psyche? After all India does
depend on cattle majorly – for milk for children and for general sustenance of
a chiefly vegetarian populace, to begin with; and then there is the agriculture
and transport in rural areas, where oxen are a matter of life and death – a poor
farmer depends on his cattle of either gender for very life of his family. Why was
this not accepted as a reason for taboo against consuming the very species one
lived with in mutual dependence for life, far more than a horse and a dog
anywhere in the world?
Now, thinking over by turning
tables, it is clear. If your values are war and taking lives and things that
belonged to those you killed, your precious species are horse and dog, and
anything else that can kill you is to be revered too. That is when you are
unlikely to understand respect for species that give and sustain life in
another, but are less use in war than in civil life - cows, moms, grandmothers,
.....
And it connects – their insistence
on everyone must eat cattle connects well mom calling being a joke for them.
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