Being vegetarian

I have heard this so many times and every time I think "big deal".
"You have never even tasted meat!"
"You can have it now, we wont tell it your parents."
"You are missing out on great pleasures of eating."
Well, really?
Many people discard this saying "it didn't go well with them." But how can I imagine the delight or disgust of consuming the living when I haven't even tried it once in my life. Not that I want to 'convert'. Just a thought.

The debate of egg being vegetarian or fish being a veg dish has no conclusion. I have had a failed argument about about milk being vegetarian or not. Phew! I totally relate to an article in Huffington Post about the dumbest things a vegetarian comes across. People pity you and say you're "missing out on life" and must be kind of sad that you can't eat meat. They forget the C-word. Its a matter of Choice and not Compulsion. 

Hypothetical questions are also a great pain that discharge your brain unnecessarily. What if you are shipwrecked and have no other option than to eat meat? I will eat grass, I say. Perhaps, the more logical hypothetical question would be what if you go to a country in Europe or China, how will you survive, where chicken is vegetarian. That is a tough one. I haven't thought about it yet. 

Green-eating people live longer. To which they say, as long as you live enjoy good food. 

Veg: We have lower body weight.

Non-veg: I'll exercise. Eat hard, Gym harder.

Veg: We have better cholesterol level.

Non-veg: I'll take medicines. I'll manage.

Veg: We have a lower risk of developing cancer.

Non-veg: As if vegs don't have it.

Counter arguments have no stopping. Say whatever, once a lover will always be a lover.

We, Indians, have been one of the founders of vegetarianism. Early records are found from the 6th century B.C., in India, Greece and the Greek civilization in Southern Italy. In all these cases vegetarianism was closely linked to a desire not to harm animals. In India this peace towards animals was called ahimsa. It was a common lifestyle among religious people and philosophers.

The conversion to Christianity of the Roman Empire virtually eliminated all traces of vegetarianism from Europe. Many orders of monks in medieval Europe either banned or limited meat consumption as a gesture of personal sacrifice or abstinence - however, none of them shunned fish. It was not until the 19th and 20th centuries that vegetarianism started to get a foothold again in Western society.

The Vegetarian Society was formed in England in 1847; equivalent societies soon followed in Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries. During the 20th century vegetarianism caught on swiftly throughout Western society. People´s motivations were for ethical, environmental, or economic reasons - and sometimes a combination or two or three reasons. Approximately 70% of the world´s lacto-vegetarians are in India, it is estimated. Approximately 20% to 42% of India´s population is vegetarian. No wonder!

Pain inside

I have seen two contrast cases recently and they have left me baffled. As a woman your greatest power to bring a life form into this world can be your greatest weakness too. Two women I know have destroyed their unborn lives -- one is happy and one sad. Happy because it was unwanted and she was unprepared. Sad, of course, because it was wanted but she had also not planned and was unprepared.
And here I am prepared and wanting and planning and all efforts in vain.
Life can be very cruel. I had heard about it but never had experienced it.
Now I know it very well.
Anyways, abortions, how horrifying it may sound, have also been a life saver and have protected many from social stigma. But certain malpractices and loopholes in this procedure has taken many lives or has left them infertile for life. Abortion was made legal in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, which was passed in 1971 and came into effect in 1972. The Act permits abortion if the doctor believes “in good faith” that “…the continuance of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health; or there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.
Statistics collected by Mumbai’s International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), a public health organisation, show that about 21 per cent of males and four per cent of females in rural areas admitted to pre-marital sex against an urban figure of 11 per cent of males and two per cent of females. The IIPS survey sample of 55,000 males and females comes from about 1.7 lakh households in Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. The age range is 15-29.
The government of India introduced family planning in 1952, and passed the MTP Act in 1972. It’s been 60 years since family planning was introduced, and 40 years since abortions were made accessible for women on many conditions, except on demand.
Prevalent lack of knowledge and unskilled medical officers have been a cause of worry. The sad woman I know faced the problem of incomplete abortion. Had she not been aware of the problem (from her lessons from past) and has she not been living in a metro city, unimaginable could have happened.