I am a Vegetarian

I never thought I would say this sentence ever in my life. Here it is: "I am a Vegetarian".

Yes!! I have decided to become a vegetarian starting from today. For the people who know me well, it might be surprising or shocking as to why I've made this decision. But I’ve thought about it thoroughly and this was the outcome of my 2 day long thinking and discussions (with my mind).

Did I go crazy to take this decision? Am I out of mind?
No, I am perfectly normal and believe me I've thought this through.

So, why suddenly? After so many years of my life why did I come to this decision now?

I was reading a blog which I landed upon through orkut. The posting was talking about how animals are being killed for fur. It had a link to a video which was showing some scenes of how animals are killed and their fur is extracted. It was really brutal and the video affected me a lot. Live animals were beaten on the ground to death or unconscious state and they were hanged down and their limbs were cut and their skin was removed from their body like removing some wrapper over a chocolate. I wasn’t affected that much till I watched half way through the video. Then the video showed the fur being removed from a half conscious animal. The animal was struggling to escape but it couldn’t and the guy was still doing what he was doing. I was thinking, at least he can kill the animal and then remove it, so that it wont be so horrible. But NO. The guy removed the skin when the animal was still alive. Even after removing the skin the animal had life and the camera-man showed the eyes of it and I felt like the animal was trying to say "why have you done this to me??" The animal tried to turn around and heal itself, but it dint have enough energy left with it. Finally it fell dead. Here is the link to the video: Click Here. I couldn’t watch the video past this. I want to acknowledge the blog that I am talking about. Here is the link to the blog: Click Here

Usually I don’t watch such videos because I know that it would affect me. But I gave an exception for this and it had changed my lifestyle now. From my childhood whenever I see such kind of videos I think I should also not eat meat. There was a program on Doordharshan hosted by Menaka Gandhi where she use to show videos of animal being killed for their meat. I have thought I should stop eating meat that time also. But I didn't implement the thought. But this time my thought has gone to the next level.

I basically belong to a vegetarian family. My parents and my brother don’t eat meat. Only I do. But they never restricted me from doing it. My dad use to tell me always to quit eating it. But he doesn’t force me to do so. My mom used to say that eating it is bad, and you should realize it by yourself, and when you realize you will stop it on your own. Well, this is the moment I have realized it.

It is not because of any spiritual or religious reasons I am taking this decision. People who know me, know that I don’t believe in GOD. It is not even the idea of killing another living being. I am the person who would like to debate that plants are also living beings. By eating it we are killing some form of life. Whether it is a single cell or multi-cell organism, it is a form of living. Consider a plant. You kill it and you are affecting its usual process. If you hadn’t killed it, it would have continued doing its cell division process, and go through its biological routine. So I would say plants are the same as animal. Killing a plant is the same as killing an animal.

The difference comes in only in the way the killing affects the organism. Seeing an animal killed definitely will affect me more than seeing a plant killed. So does it mean that since plants cannot struggle or defend itself we can kill it? No, just because its biological nature is not as complex as other organisms in the higher level in the Biological tree, we cannot kill it. And also we human beings cannot live without food. The ecosystem is in such a way that higher level organisms feed on lower level organisms. That is why we feed on animals also. So the situation that is put in front of us is like this. I am killing organisms every day, whether it is directly or indirectly. It doesn’t matter. I am basically a killer. But it doesn’t mean that since I am a killer already I can kill whatever I want. Humans have the social awareness. That is why just because we are killers we don’t go and kill other human being. Since we are humans we are aware of the hurt we are causing to an animal physically. I have argued with vegetarians many times, that by killing plant also we are hurting it, but it could not express the hurt in a more obvious way. I am saying the same now also. I am hurting a plant by killing it. But I cannot live without eating anything at all. It comes down the "Survival of the Fittest" scenario. So now its like this, hurting a plant is less intensive and the hurt is less obvious than when it is done to an animal. So when I have an option of hurting an organism which shows its hurt/struggle more obviously and hurting an organism which cannot show its hurt in a more obvious way, I choose to hurt the later one.

So the basis of my decision is based upon the intensity of the hurt I am causing to it by killing it. And also the whole idea of Vegetarianism is totally subjective. Some people consider Egg is also a non-vegetarian food and some people say it is an exception based upon their reason for vegetarianism. Based upon my reason I feel that egg can be given an exception. But I am gonna try avoiding that also. Again it is totally subjective.

When I look back and see, I wanted to have a list of non-vegetarian food I've eaten. I am not proud in listing it but I feel proud that I am not going to kill them anymore. I am proud that I am making my family happy. Here they are: Beef, Mutton (Lamb), Pork, Rabbit, Fish, Prawn, Shrimp, Crab, Chicken, Turkey, Duck, I don’t know the English word for "Kaadai" but that is a kind of bird.

So that’s it. "I am a Vegetarian" :)