Required

A friend posted this question on a thread asking "the reason people who are not vegetarian by birth, what made them change to it?"
http://chennaifoodguide.in/thread/view?id=179

My thoughts on this topic

Born into a Malayali Syrian Christian family and being the only ‘shakahari’ as my ammachy calls me, is tough, till date. I was 16 when I stopped eating Non-veg. I am neither an animal-lover nor enamored by organized religion. But, back then, this sentence kinda affected me deeply 

“Spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants." --Mahatma Gandhi.

I had started reading articles by PFA in Young World paper.  Reading about how brutally animals were treated- clipped mouth, huddles in small spaces, veal (calves are taken from their mothers one or two days after birth), I decided to stop eating.  Even though i've seen my grandfather kill a home-bred chicken for dinner and didnt feel a thing, it just didn’t feel right to eat something which didn’t want to be eaten. The weaning away started gradually, checking my willpower if I could leave NV and not to shock my parents too. It worked and after sometime I didn’t feel the need to eat it anymore. It’s been 15 years now and I think it’s still a decision I am happy to have chosen.

I get following comments, esp at family and church gatherings.

• Have you tried this dish? Once you eat it your mind will COMPLETELY (mallu accent) change.
• Haven’t you read in the Bible where it says we can eat specific clean animals. So you SHOULD eat them. God created them ONLY (again mallu accent) for you. SO you should eat them, because the bible says so.
• Not even fish you’ll eat! What about the rice in mutton biryani, that’s not NV?
• This is not some factory processed meat. This is nadaan (country) chicken, fully home-grown.
• What, you’re still a vegetarian?  Didn’t your husband convert you yet? (My semi- hardcore NV husband cooks yummy finger-licking NV dishes, as informed by those who have eaten it)
• What fasting at this time of the year, huh, not even Lent?
• Just give her and make her eat (Told to my MIL, with me standing right there)
• And of course the most common - So, you will kill plants. That’s not killing, eh! Do you know they have life too?

It is unbelievably irritating! Its also amusing that I know if I tell people my thoughts about open marriages, there will be complete silence, not even a pip. However if I tell them I am a vegetarian, they cannot stop themselves from trying to convert me, until the end of time. 

The reason as to why I am a vegetarian, is that it resonates within my powerful spirit. No other reason is required, for me.