The Slaughter of Innocents

Happy New year, folks! So how good have you been with your New Year resolutions so far? Are you about to give in to the seductions of that cigarette you’ve spurned for a week? Or are the mornings too cold to venture out for the workout you’d promised yourself? Chances are, your resolutions must’ve eloped with last week’s hangover, so let me find you a new one… one that might help you save both your heart and your world… I say, go veg!

Now, before you dismiss me as a sentimental extremist, you’ve got to give me a fair hearing, so don’t go about turning the page just yet. You just love the flavour and the aroma of a slice of juicy steak or the greasy deliciousness of some well cooked butter chicken, don’t you? I can imagine… in fact, why imagine… I can remember… Till about five years ago, I loved eating meat. Chicken, beef, turkey, duck, veal, mutton, lamb and pork… and I liked the last one best… roasted or cured, as salami or bacon, pork was my meat of choice, just ahead of turkey and veal. At the same time, I was also an active conservationist and an animal rights activist. I loved animals… it’s just that I loved some animals on the plate too. When I would be asked how I could possibly lobby for the conservation of tigers and the prevention of cruelty to draught animals over a plate of pepperoni pizzas or lamb chops, I would reply that the tigers are endangered by commercial greed, not hunger and while it maybe a goat or a chicken’s natural purpose to be eaten (since their wild cousins are classified as prey species), it was never a bull-buffalo’s or horse’s natural purpose to be flogged to death under the yoke of a heavily overloaded cart. Moreover, I would tell them, “I owe it to my genes to eat meat”, for I’d heard (and I hope I remember correctly….) on tv that if we hadn’t started eating animal proteins at a certain stage of our evolution, we might not have developed the brain capacity of modern humans. The space in our skulls that is taken up by grey matter today would’ve been reserved for powerful chewing muscles and thick jawbones for masticating tough plant matter which is harder to digest and low on nutrition. Also, this simple evolutionary decision of consuming other animals instead of plant stems had liberated proteins from the onerous task of strengthening the digestive system (as in the case of herbivores) and given them the freedom to aid the growth of the most magnificent of organs – the super-sized human brain. So, eating meat, I told them, wasn’t my decision but nature’s… I was just acting in accordance with an evolutionary master script, inspite of my great love for ‘all creatures great and small’.

So, what happened? Well, to answer your question, I’ll have to take you to a small seedy lane in south Delhi that connects the affluent islands of Defence Colony and South Extension. This dirty lane, hidden behind dusty woodwork stores, characterised by open drains on one side and tiny boxy butcheries, huge strips of marbled ham hanging from the rafters like forbidding curtains, on the other, was my cycling shortcut to my office in South Ex. Once, while returning from office on a summer afternoon, I heard terrible ear splitting squeals piercing through the dull din of the traffic. I followed the sound to an open patch behind the row of meat shops where a group had tied a tiny piglet’s legs and were about to skewer it alive. I had never seen a pig being killed before and while I understood that a bit of bloodshed might have been necessary, I had no idea, that deliciously pink meat reached me through such violent cruelty. I bought the little animal before they could kill it and took it with me to an animal shelter nearby called Friendicoes. As the piglet was released in its holding area, it nuzzled up to me, refusing to budge from where I stood. The traumatised little animal refused to trust any environment beyond the security of my presence and squealed pitifully as I walked away after giving it a cuddle. I still remember its big ears and long lashed beady eyes following me as long as they could… begging me to stay…

I did order a pepperoni pizza once after that but I couldn’t eat it. I felt like I was betraying the memory of those eyes expressing their trust and exhorting my protection. And I swore off meat altogether. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and say that it was okay for me to eat mutton and chicken but not pigs, or dogs, cows or whales, just because of cultural biases. The ethics of eating an animal ought to be a question of morality not culture, or religion. So it is either okay to eat animals or it isn’t. It is unfair to crinkle our noses at cultures that eat dogs, whales or other people just because we don’t and prefer goats and birds instead.

The question is, now that evolution has done its bit and man has found access to various kinds of proteins that allow him the fulfilment of his genetic potential without having to kill other creatures for food, where does he draw the line, if any?

I don’t need meat to survive or evolve. That is a fact. But why give up on one of the greatest joys in the world… the primal pleasure of biting into protein rich meat? I gave up because I couldn’t answer the questions in the eyes of that piglet. But for you, in future columns I’ll try and bring you more compelling reasons. Meanwhile, before you eat meat ever again, I urge you to go to a slaughterhouse and witness firsthand ‘the slaughter of an innocent’, so that you could savour the flavour of that flesh… you owe the animal at least that much…

Vegetarians are easy meat?

“You don’t win friends with salad… you don’t win friends with salad,” teased Bart and Homer Simpson, when Lisa pledged vegetarianism in America’s favourite dysfunctional family. As it turns out for vegetarians, you not only don’t win friends with salad, but you can’t be too sure of salad itself now. Ever tried looking closely at those Good Day cakes – soft and spongy cakes promising the wholesomeness of milk and other nutritious flavours? The wrapper has a tiny red dot in a red square denoting non-vegetarian ingredients, in this case, animal gelatin. Not many notice. But what’s worse is the countless other food items consumed by unsuspecting vegetarians, for lack of adequate warning on animal product ingredients used. Think ice creams and cookies. They not only have eggs beaten in, but even gelatin which is a nice sounding name for protein extracted from the bones of animals. French fries? Once upon a time McDonald’s fried those potatoes in 93% beef tallow (fat). The innocuous cheese on the breakfast table is curdled with rennet, or enzymes obtained from the stomach lining of calves. And beat this: the fresh sweetmeats that you bring home from the halwai and often even offer to the gods (diet preferences unsure) are covered in fine silver foils which again are hammered casings of cattle intestines. Are there any vegetarians still in the room?

Am I an islamophobe?

Some of my favourite people in the world are Muslim. In my early teens, as an aspiring cricketer, my greatest source of inspiration was the fiery power of Imran Khan. In those days, I did not begrudge Pakistan its victories over India, as long as my hero had done well. There were times I wished I were Muslim, in the hope that a shared faith might result in shared ability. Since then, I’ve sought and found both warmth and love amongst Muslims, some of whom I count amongst my dearest friends. And yet...

It was a rare day this autumn in New York. Bright sunshine and Bach accompanied me to Journal Square, where I boarded a train for what is still called ‘The World Trade Center’. I was distressed. The Jolie-Pitts were shooting for ‘A Mighty Heart’ in Pune, and I was too far away to honour whatever press invitations might’ve come my way (and you better believe there were some). More disturbingly, I had stayed up all of the previous night watching a documentary about the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl, and some of the footage was so distressing that I couldn’t sleep. I’ve always taken pride in being a liberal pacifist, and yet, the collage of bearded faces creased with hate, the rising crescendo of “Allahu Akbar,” praise of the Lord demonised into a war chant, churned deep dark thoughts. In that bigoted moment, it was so easy to believe that every Muslim was a fire-breathing kafir slayer and so difficult to imagine any of them as loving fathers, doting husbands, dutiful sons or remotely human beings. I tossed and turned in my sleep, struggling with the images and my convictions to the contrary.

The train started moving, and away from the darkness, in the buzz and bustle of the world’s busiest city, the thoughts seemed to fade away. But soon there was to be a test – a test I was to fail. At the next station, a young Arab entered the car. He had a heavy satchel across his shoulder and a book with Arabic inscriptions in his hand. Pairs of hitherto drowsy eyes watched, some with curiosity, others with disdain, even loathing, and I with interest that changed imperceptibly into apprehension, fear and worse. Thoughts of the previous night came screaming back. Memories of 9/11, 7/7 and the the man’s religious fervour, all seemed to suggest to my fevered brain that the man might’ve anointed us all for mass martyrdom. I got up, admonishing little voices in my head that tried to remind me that I was committing the very sins I’d condemned, and got off the train at the very next stop.

“Better be guilty and safe than sorry and dead,” I told the voices but they grew louder still, driving me to shame and admiration. Shame, because I could not bear the thought of having betrayed my own beliefs and in many ways, the faith of my friends. And admiration for the millions of peaceful Muslims in the world, who repeatedly forgive the rest of the world for chaining them to the crimes of a deviant few, without compromising on their values as Muslims, and more significantly, as human beings. I owe that unknown Arab, and every such Muslim, an apology, as I do to Pakistani New Yorkers like Tariq, who’ve welcomed me into their hearts, blind to the momentary prejudice that had wrought havoc with my beliefs. Students and friends, apologies, for having forsaken, albeit for a moment, all that I’d preached. Steadfast faith in the divine essence of every faith can truly make angels, if not gods, of human beings, for it cultivates forgiveness. Like in the grieving Amish, who forgave the very man who killed their daughters, by including the killer and his family in their prayers. To hate is not human, but to forgive surely divine; and may whatever powers that be give us the courage to forgive and douse the fire of hate in an ocean of unconditional forgiveness. Christ said it, Gandhi repeated it; and for the sake of ourselves, let’s live it.

Epilogue: I was brought up to believe that terrorists aim to terrorise, but over the last few months I’ve grown to realise that the current brand of terrorism in our country only aims to polarise. I wrote the above column two years ago, believing that the world could only get better… But it has been a protracted illness. Our hate and fear has only grown. As for my own, I confess, they return every time I see a person I’m glad I didn’t know being carried like a sack on the streets, his/her innards disembowelled by a faceless bomb, in the name of an orphaned and disowned (by the very people the bomb claims to represent) faith.

But amidst the din of bombs and bullets, political rhetoric from both sides of the border, saffron bigotry and Antulayan antics,even if for some moments, an act of violence forces me to react like a Hindu because it pigeonholes and reduces me to being only that – a Hindu, I always try and remind my self that my religion is only about my relationship with God, not my relationship with man, be he Hindu, Muslim or Jewish. And I remind myself that my destiny, just like yours, is intertwined, across communities and borders, for cleaved halves we may be, but we are one whole, waiting to unite through all that divides us. And this isn’t misty eyed sentimentality speaking… just look back on the last few centuries and you’ll know…