It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog or
even written a note about anything. And if
I’m to say that it took me difficult ways to get inspired in ways I’d seldom
imagined. Right from watching “Finding Forrester” as suggested by my best
friend Chacko or being brain washed by my colleague Parv who is a walking
library and a General-knowledge aficionado. So here it is, which happens
to be a string of thoughts which flew past me on one Sunday afternoon,
around a couple of weeks back , about eating “BEEF” ….yeah you heard
it! There ain’t much ado about it, or
could be bracketed as a self-inflicted humour, voila!!
It was the third Sunday of May when I was
invited for a luncheon by my course-mate. We know each other since seven
years and have been a very good friend, guide and a kick-ass-criticiser of
mine. As a cherry on icing, I’m meeting his family after his marriage
which took place three years ago and he has a 2 year old son too. So it is in reality a torture-session
sabotaged in the name of lunch with ‘Beef” as the extra bait. He knew my weak-point and I knew it’s a bait
still couldn’t resist. So be it….I
bought some chocolates and sweets for the kid and walked right into it.
That day I underwent an elaborate session of
brain drain that neither my friend nor his lovely wife was not-at-all in a mood
to spare me. Starting with the situations where I had to meet them after their
marriage, courtesy visits to their home and even to meet this little kiddo when
he was born (imagine my head hits the table top in slow motion). And him on the other hand; even though a year
younger to me, considers himself as my big brother and rhymed beautifully about
my inability to rise up to the said occasions.
Well, patience pays, and lunch was served, and I hogged like I had never
eaten after my dinner last night, honestly I skipped my dinner last night view
‘spiritual’ reasons. A lengthy fifteen
hours of starvation can actually boost up your cravings for food into an
abnormal state. I always sabotage the self proclaimed “I-am-on-a-strict-diet”
feeling once I finish a heavy meal and this wasn’t different either.
As a statutory warning, eating beef is a
complete sin according to the religion which I follow. Since beef is
pertaining to (particularly) cows, which happen to be a background creature in the
pictures of Lord Krishna, an important Deity in Hinduism. Also it has been referred throughout the
Vedas, Puranas (Epics of divine genre) and subsequent legends and very much in
tangent towards the divine side. So any
harm to that creature is like taking a one-way ticket to an active mine-field
since the religious sentiments are too sensitive in this regard.
On
record, nobody’s going to cut your head or put a steel in your rib cage, but
for safety reasons eating beef is still kept a hush-hush matter in most of the
parts in this country. However, this is
never a hush-hush matter from when I come from; the south-West of the Indian
peninsula. But there is a long history
of very serious events related to this viande
rouge which had taken place and have even led the way to freedom!!
In Mahabharata (one absolute epic), there
are many instances in which ego-clashes that grew up into some magnanimous
revenge due to sharing of cows. And in
one of the Puranas there was one divine cow which could provide anything right
from food, dress and even a whole army.
And one king who laid his eyes on it sent ‘his’ army to fight and got
seriously thrashed. Above all, the one
noteworthy event which deserves the attention would be the “First war of
Independence” way back in 1853 when the Indian soldiers in the British Army
revolted against using the bullets as it had a covering made out of cow-fat !!!
One should imagine the unfathomable sentiments running through every
countrymen, as their very first revolt for Independence is ‘the’ moment of
change, let it be the French, the American.etc. So, my dear friends, this animal is that
much deeply rooted into the history of India and the medulla-oblongata of
everyone. As a matter of fact, its
religion and it’s sentiments that prevailed.
As I was riding back to my cabin these
thoughts were In reality if a cow is getting old in the shed, it should die on
its own and has to be cremated with all reverence. And if one can’t wait up to that, then just
leave them alone, the vultures and other scavengers will take care of it. this Just because of a sort of ‘fairplay’
theory those who devoured it are happy, those who came to know that you
‘devoured’ it are unhappy; a kind of yin-yan situation.
The dynamic question that evolved in my
mind, which I’m little concerned on asking anybody is that “Does the food you
eat decide your faith??” or is it like a
preconceived firewall which got embedded into your neurons which contradicts
you?? Imagine a voice telling you “dude,
now you are going to hell!” In my
opinion the answer lies in “what you think what happens in you. Every religion says about that divine power
which flows in you.” That you are made
of a divine inter connection, that you are what the Gods are, and when you eat
what he has prohibited you from eating you go to hell??? So it is your faith…..your faith is you….and
you are your faith !!!
And suddenly a hair-pin turn appeared, I slowed
my bike, made a smooth turn and rode off !!
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