A shameless meateater

I didn't know being a vegetarian was a big thing or rather being a non-vegetarian was an awfully bigger thing until I joined a hospital that has strict policies...policies that go beyond my capacity of  understanding the difference between the two.

The more I think about it the more I laugh about the hypocrisy of a vegetarian.
At this point, am sure, I don't need to explain that I am a pure non-vegetarian and that I think there is no difference between uprooting spinach and fishing.

Well, I don't recall saying it to any veggie sitting beside me at a lunch , " Oh my god, look at the slice of potatoes in your plate! How can you do that to a living plant!"



Yess, fellow meat eaters I know that you know what I mean. We've heard that. We've been criticized for, looked down upon and even banned from eating good , nutritious food. Phew.

They say meat makes you angry and aggressive...etc etc and crap. In my defense, I would like to say being a plant hogger makes you narrow minded, self- centered, and absolutely intolerant and it hampers your ability to decide between right and wrong.

Let's look at it. Firstly, eat what is in your plate. I don't peep into how ruthlessly you have cooked or overcooked your vegetable, then don't look in mine. Simple. I don't ban you from anywhere.I respect your choice of using potatoes as an accompaniment of anything and everything that you get your hands on.

Alu-palak, alu bhendi, alu-matar, alu-tamatar, alu gobi, alu chana, alu simla.
Ohkay.
 
Lastly, just because 60% of Indians are vegetarian does not mean we, the rest 40% are criminals. Coz in that sense, you might still loose looking at statistics worldwide.

And...it all comes down to taste buds....So the magic of burnt, beaten, smothered baigan as a bharta appeals as much as a simple boiled chicken with it's stock! So deal with it. Period.

He left.

I met Enthusiasm the other day. I immediately took his measurements: I circled him. I measured his height, his strong wrists, his elegantly sloped shoulders. He was looking down on me carefully, attentively studying my eyes, my pursed lips and inquisitive hands.
He stood very still as I worked.

I finished. A little embarrassed.

Enthusiasm shook his head, smiled. His face formed one of the best curves I've ever seen. Beneath his eyes formed tiny plum veins. He reached out and circled his arms around me. He said nothing. I had the sense he had seen it before: people unwilling to let go off what was gone.

All I could think of was he is leaving. I know he is. Where, I didn't say.
I guess when you are screwed over and over again, it numbs you on such a level that the moment you feel incredibly happy, you are very sure it slips right through your fingers. It's not even about being screwed in the first place. People are good to me, have been great in the past but it's the end that leaves it's impact. In a strange way, in different ways I must say, they all leave, giving me words of comfort and encouragement and love, they all leave. I'm independent and strong, I know, but standing there, looking in Enthusiasms' eyes my brain was racing around.
Things I couldn't remember loosing. Things I had missed all my life.

Let's switch places. Let's switch lives, I wanted to say. Enthusiasm raised an eyebrow.
The touch of his hands on my back, tensed me. He was infectious, I thought. I wanted to be better, I wanted to survive better, I wanted 1% of him. And I wanted all this without having to use words, without begging him to tell me how to be better, without having to tell him anything.

And I had the strangest feeling of him creeping in through my skin on the back. The world was going blue from black. The curves on my face were changing directions. It felt safe to voice the words my brain was forming. He peeled away hundreds of layers on me like onion skins.
Not alchemy, I thought it was, but close. Close.

Classifying problems is endless and unyielding. How are we to gauge? And there are so many stories. Just so freakin' many of them. Feeling his warm breath against the skin of my face, I could feel the old records being purged. It's surprising how someone so unfamiliar, so far away can hurl you up. It's strange how sometimes, someone doesn't make you want him, instead make you want to Be him. And it's equally weird how sometimes, some stories that you stack in the different drawers of your brain and forget, you finally hold in your hands, waiting to be heard.


Before he let himself out, Enthusiasm brushed my cheek lightly with the back of his hand- making me aware of his presence in that particular moment, bringing me back from my world of thoughts, and assuring me that he heard everything I did not say.... That I could walk down barefoot someday, along a dirt drive in life, up to him, and he will still be there.

.....and he left.