I LOVE Chicken !!

REALISATION Everyone has a moment in their lives, a moment that makes one pause, reflect and consequently forces change inside. Without passing judgement, I am going to narrate one such moment in my life, only sharing how I changed that day.

One day, my husband and me, were going to an open market for our vegetable and fruit shopping. He had just parked the car and walked to the market. I was settling down for a long wait in the car, as he always took his time selecting the food he loved to eat. Looking around, I realised we had parked right next to a poultry shop. As my glance reached the inside of the shop, I saw the shop owner take a chicken (one that was still alive) out of the stock of many frightened ones. He held it by the neck looked at it with a sadist smile , already visualizing the delight of the one who would put this one in their stomach. He placed it on the block and held it down with one hand while with the other chopped off tits head in one cruel stroke. The headless chicken kept fluttering and moving in death throes, while I sat motionless, totally horrified at the sight i had just seen. The head had landed on the other side and it’s sightless eyes seemed to look at me and beg an explanation. I will never ever forget this sight in my life. I was born into a vegetarian family and till the age of nineteen had never ever tasted meat. We children used to eat eggs, my father too would eat only for the protein requirements prescribed for his health. After marriage , I was encouraged by my husband to start eating meat. Since he was a true and avid non vegetarian, and I was a dampener in the quest of his palette. To please him and maybe also influenced by peers, I had started cooking chicken curry gravy for him and our guests and had also started eating it to give them company but could never bring myself to accept the same. This horrifying scene in front of my eyes was like a knock into my stomach. Various thoughts raced in my mind. I was actually eating the flesh of another living being? I was actually killing and eating a life form? To satisfy not my hunger but to please my husband or the palette? Did I want to? Was I responsible for taking an innocent life? Did I have a right to?

These question had troubled me from the day I had given in, but at that moment they all came back as if demanding an answer. I reflected and then that little voice inside me became louder than the clutter of the mind. That is how I became a vegetarian much to my husbands disappointment.

Now the spread of this tiny microscopic virus from an animal market in Wuhan , known for merciless eating of wild animals from whom the virus has spread to humanity, has forced us to pause and rethink. It’s as if Mother Earth is angry at us. As if she has reached the limit of her tolerance. As if she is teaching us a lesson. Today as we humans sit in solitude and animals reclaim their land , i wonder Are we living as as Nature wanted us to? Are we appreciative of Nature’s bounties? Are we living in harmony with nature?

It’s time to rethink . It’s time to change our ways. It’s time to recognize the divinity in each and every form of life. It’s time for compassion and kindness to both the humans and animals

Even though your eating habits are a personal decision, but I do wonder

Why is it that for one human its not possible to eat meat and while for another survival without it seems impossible? Why one is so compassionate to another form of life and another couldn’t care less? Are those eating meat ignorant or selfish? Are humans meant to eat other inhabitants of the planet? I really wonder what the real answer is, but for me i found mine that day.