WHAT-ITARIAN ARE YOU?

“How can you even manage to watch them cook that thing?” my mother and grandmother would rant as they would watch the famous food show. Being born a vegetarian, I would understand what they felt and would quickly change the channel. Most of my growing days were spent in my friend’s place who was a non-vegetarian and I was quite used to the ‘sights’!

I ended up falling in love with someone whose passion among other things is non-vegetarian food – the root cause for writing this piece! He went out to a ‘pure-vegetarian’ restaurant last night and came up with this blog called ‘Meatless moments at the table’ or something like that! (You can read the copy at www.rohitnambiar.blogspot.com) It’s a personal choice as to what you choose to eat, but when he wrote this piece and said one was far better than the other, I had to hit back!

As I woke up last morning, my mind was preparing what to write and the newspaper became my aide. Sunday Herald (Deccan Herald) carried this brilliant article titled ‘Can vegetarians save the world?’ The following caught my attention:

• It takes three kilograms of cereal to grow one kilogram of meat
• Nearly half the cereal we grow is eaten by animals we presently eat
• Every Indian is a vegetarian. Even if some of us eat meat and fish, we never eat anything close to the global average of 37.5 kilograms of meat per year per person to qualify as carnivores

The article ended on a different note by bringing to notice that Indians can’t portray themselves as ‘pure vegetarians’ with so much cruelty in them in terms of baby slaughters, burning brides, widows etc.

Anyway back to food. Remember the famous dialogue between Big B and Tabu in ‘Cheeni Kum’ where Big B claims that the water level in the sea has increased because of the tears the fish are shedding, seeing their clan dwindle in number due to non-vegetarians? I had this broad smile when I saw that scene.

I have had my share of non-veg tasting with an open mind. Having been to local eateries and the best of restaurants in Bangalore to get a feel of this cuisine, I have concluded that my experience has not been mouth-watering! Yes, we vegetarians might have to suffice with just paneer, gobi and a mélange of vegetables but I think I am content. I think most of us might have had this experience just before we venture into non-veg eating/tasting. Our friends will claim that chicken tastes like potatoes and fish like paneer! Then why eat non-veg when I can eat my potatoes and paneer! Lol!

Oh yes, some non-veggies would not agree with my sentence above, claiming their food has a distinct taste but guys, listen! We suffice with paneer, gobi and ‘boring’ vegetables and you guys with a variety of fish, heart, brain, liver and even privates of those poor animals just have the same spices and batter to fry them in or a bland stir fry of them all!

Being a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian is a personal choice. I have seen many vegetarians relish their new found happiness in non-veg food and so be it. Anyway I dint write this piece to promote vegetarianism but it was just a rebuttal of sorts to the blog I read! No offense meant; it is just a way to bring out thoughts when one reads others’ articles! It now sits here pretty as a blog!