- O’ King, I said, even as King Vikram carried me away to kill me. Let me tell you a story, at the end of which I’ll ask you a question. If you speak the answer, I’ll fly away. If you know the answer and keep silent, your head will burst into a thousand pieces, in which case you will find it difficult to pose meaningfully for your driver’s license photo. Listen up, I began. King, as you well know, I am not a vegetarian. I eat…
-Shut up you of the undead! said King Vikram. I don’t want to know what you eat. He began to breathe heavily. I felt worried for his health and decided to skip the details of the ingredients that made up my meals.
A man when drunk is susceptible to tempatations like house music and meat samosas
- At any rate, I said, I am not a vegetarian. But Vinay was. Vinay was an earnest young boy who gave up eating meat because he didn’t like killing animals. One day, he went to a party. To remove the social anxiety he was feeling, he got drunk in the first fifteen minutes. A man when drunk is susceptible to temptations like house music and meat samosas. The host of the party offered Vinay a samosa with a chicken filling.
-No thank you, said Vinay politely. I am a vegetarian.
-Religious reasons? asked the man.
-No, said Vinay. It’s just that I don’t like killing animals.
-Oh, excuse me your Holiness, said the man. But do you know that you cause pain to plants when you pluck them?
-Really, said Vinay. Partly due to alcohol and partly due to epiphany, the room swam before his eyes.
-What do you say O’ King? Was the man right to ask Vinay to eat meat?
- In so far that plants can feel pain, the man was right.Science has shown that plants can emit the equivalent of howls when plucked or damaged.
But he overlooked an important thing. If you can eat an animal even after seeing it die, it hardens you. Every time you eat meat, you ignore the visible pain of another. You lose just a little bit of empathy, and become just a little more indifferent – and if I may say so, uncaring.
On the other hand, you really can’t see a plant suffer. You don’t have to harden yourself when you take a knife to a cabbage. Staying vegetarian doesn’t necessarily help you become a kinder person – but it sure helps you remain one.
-Well said, O’ King. Now, that you have spoken, I am free to escape. Watch me go faster than a chicken who has just discovered a hole in its coop.
He watched me.
