Veggie..Veggie..Veggie!!!

In the last 2 weeks I had fierce arguments on three occasions about being a vegetarian.. some people are sad that I dont eat meat/egg, some people are angry that I dont like meat/egg and some people pity me because I cant survive outside India.. Anyway, their opinions are not the object of this post..  If things go this way I have to allocate one chapter of my autobiography for this and should name it as "Being Veggie" :)

Since childhood I didnt eat nonveg because I just cant bear the smell of the meat/egg.. when I became very weak due to some fever my parents tried feeding egg so that I could gain some strength quickly but I just could not take that into my system.. They tried for one week and all through the week I vomited the whole content.. I was only six/seven when this happened.. After that I never tried meat/egg because I was often going to the temple as a priest (along with my cousins) and eating meat/egg looked like blasphemous.. Then came an age in my life when people started abusing me for the caste that I belong to.. making fun of me based on the caste.. satirical jokes insulting brahmins and many more.. this has only resulted in strengthening my will power to remain vegeterian.. then came the age of my B.Tech/hostel life where in people around me are sane enough to understand that my food habits are  none of their business.. At the same time even I never bothered to worry so much about it.. because EOD food is very personal an issue.. any unwanted remarks might inadvertently cause pain to others..  After coming to Bangalore, one of my roomie was a meat eater but he never insisted on cooking it in the house because he witnessed me once vomiting due to the smell of a cooked chicken.. who want to witness such a scene during meal time?? :P

In the last one and half years, since I did my Art of Living course I went through a lot of content about this veggie vs Non-veggie thing.. After all the study what I realized is that being veggie is the need of the hour.. it has got nothing to do with the caste/religion/country/culture.. we did know that dinosaurs reached their grave only because after a certain point they couldnt find anything more to eat.. if humans continue to rely on meat for the food sooner than later human being will be extinct.. take my word for this.. just google about it and you will find n number of sites, articles explaining how non veggies are damaging this planet.. it is not out of intention that they are spoiling this planet but because of their ignorance.. because of lack of awareness..  Right now human beings formed a body for climate control, pollution control etc but if the non-veggies count increases, sooner than later there will be a body in the umbrella of UNO to counter non-veg eating.. I know my statement appears few miles away  from sanity but I have every reason to believe so.. As of today Non vegeterianism is the second biggest cause of global warming.. only after industrial pollution..
OK, let me not bore you with all this stuff but please check your ecological footprint and check whether you are contributing to the planet or exploiting it.  here is where you can do that http://myfootprint.org/en/visitor_information/ this site is run by a group whose integrity is beyond doubt..
though people say I'm depriving myself of some new taste in life I feel proud that I'm part of the solution not part of the problem..And I have very bad thoughts about egg and carbonated  drinks so I'm not writing it here.. because if I write about them here, all the women folk who read it will stop talking to me.. Already there are quite a few who scold me as a part of their weekly prayers :) and I dont want to increase that count..

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu
-Karthik