August 12,2024

 

The weekend went well but not exactly as I had anticipated it to go. Friday night for some strange reason, I went off to sleep at 5.30 pm and awoke at 7.15 PM. This is a terrible thing, and from previous experience, it causes tremendous lethargy and renders one out of commission for the rest of the evening. The same happened with me on this occasion. On Saturday, we watched “Ulajh” in a far-off cineplex and while I enjoyed the customary barrel of popcorn, the movie did not impress me. It was a sort-of spy movie, the kind both me and the wife like, hence we made the drive to this miles-away cineplex. My wife liked it, but I found it not well edited. The plot wasn’t bad but it was not put together in a way that flowed. In the evening, we had Tilo over for me to revise some of our old ( and some new) “Standby” material on both piano and guitar. However, when she arrived, we opened a bottle of wine- and one thing led to another we only engaged in conversation- there was no music. I had cooked some paella to boot so all in all, it was an enjoyable evening, albeit one that did not go according to my script. The Sunday was a lunch outing at a new Bengali restaurant (Babumoshai) with a few different families. The food was good, in particular the mutton bhuna- or rather how we say it in Bangla “Kosha Mangsho” – was the standout dish for me. And while driving back from the meal, I was thinking to myself- I still enjoy meat. But I have always wanted to cut it out from my diet- atleast start off by cutting out cattle. And eventually cut out birds and finally fish. I spent 3 days in a farm in rural masachussets last month and this made me realise that animals, particularly cattle have a significant humanoid disposition. There is emotion, not unlike humans- and to think we rear them with care only to slaughter them for food just does not make any sense. I just have to wean myself out of flavour profiles that I have just gotten used to. It can’t be that hard, people all around me are doing it. Priyanka has managed it- wherein she does not eat any cattle. If I can learn a new instrument in my late forties, surely I can unlearn eating meat. My sons do not eat beef, but so far they eat mutton and lamb-and like it. I don’t want to make this choice for them- I mean to continue to let them eat meat, but I don’t want to eat meat myself. 

The western world in particular is a massive consumer of beef. It shows up as “mince” in various meat sauces, hamburgers, burritos- not to mention in slow cooked pot roasts and fast-cooked steaks and grills.  Cows, which are very large and gentle creatures, are sacrificed by the millions to fulfil this human appetite. While it might seem that a lot of people are turning vegetarian, it is balanced by a larger number of people consuming more meat. It used to be expensive to eat meat. Now, on the whole, both populations and incomes are rising and the mechanised animal farming is bringing costs down- all of which is making demand go up. Various environmental groups are protesting animal slaughter, particularly cow slaughter on grounds that it is terrible for the emissions reduction initiatives- which of course tie in to climate change. But there is far more human reason not to kill cows. And like a plethora of other ideas that have been known to hindus for thousands of years but that are only now being realised by a smattering of influential non-hindus, non violence against cows is being seen as a reasonable thing. Like Yoga and intermittent fasting, the west is beginning to appropriate the “sacred cow” predilection prevalent in India for their own benefit, and what’s more, for their own profit. A series of articles have come about over the last few years, especially since Covid which refer to “Cow-Hugging” as a form of psycho therapy for humans. There are barns in California, Wales and particualrly in the Netherlands where humans can high cows-sticking ther faces against the warm fluffy real-estate offered by bovine cheeks. This apparently emits endorphins and loads of people feel great doing it. Anxious, depressed and lonely people- which pretty much increasingly describes the wildly mechanised modern world, all seem to feel better after hugging cows. But ofcourse, hindus have always known that the cow is a special beast. It has the ultimate caring and maternal instinct which, believe it or not, also extend to humans. The reason Indians know this is because for millenia people in rural ( and also semi-urban ) areas used to keep atleast one cow in their backyard for milk. This used to be like a pet- except it offered fresh milk that sustained the family. It was a common feature to note that when a member of the family passed on, the grief was apparent also in the cow. In fact it tended to shed more tears than the human relatives. And hence it was culturally inappropriate to kill them for food. Somehow it got a religious angle ,but it really is cultural.  That is not to say that the Indian diet is great.  An Indian vegetarian diet is basically excessive carbohydrates. This was fine when people had a more active lifestyle to burn it all out – nowadays it just generates copious amounts of sugar and causes diabetes. But one can still choose the lesser evil of consuming birds, fish and dairy for protein. One is not being nice to the fish or the chicken- but these creatures are not on the same level of sentience as cows. That must account for something I feel. If you remove all animals from your diet, it is bound to be a struggle. There is simply not enough deliciousness to make your world go around. One has to live in blandness, and look to substitute flavour-related endorphins with alternatives. I am not an expert but it seems to me that evolution of this kind will take a few hundred years atleast.