Sunday, March 6, 2011

A swift transition from a Vegetarian to a Vegan!!

There is nothing in our life called bad times. Its only a perception. Only good time & better time exist. The time which we consider bad time are actually better time of our life. Bad time are the best teacher we can ever have, they teach us the thing that nobody can ever teach us. So its up to us whether we perceive it as bad time & waste our life thinking why we had it or as better time and learn something out of it. A similar such event happened with me which made me think in a new light. Bad times are not necessary the times in which any bad happens to us but are also the ones in which we do something bad upon others intentionally or unintentionally.
Till the end on 2009, i used to be a Vegetarian and was in vain that i do not inflict any harm on others, but one fine day while i was discussing the ill-effects of a non-vegetarian diet with a non-vegetarian friend of mine, i realized that there is an element of "bad" in vegetarian diet also. I visited the dairy farm the following day and saw how we use/harass/torture the cattle animals in order to get dairy product out of them. Being an animal lover, it completely shattered me and i decided to go Vegan.
But this decision of mine which i recently had taken was something which was not "kids stuff" for me as i belong to a society where, unfortunately, after a brief history of non-violence, people where turning violent by adopting a diet that involves harm to others. Further, being a person who completely loved milk product and who "literally" used to survive completely on lacto diet, consuming nothing other than at least 1.5 Lt. of lacto product on a daily basis, Veganism was some thing really hard for me but the thing that kept me going was the consideration that how can i harm the source of the thing i love completely.
Being a part of a society where Cows are respected as much as our mothers are and where the milk products are considered holy and where it is an integral part of religious ceremony, excluding it from my life was difficult. People here are of the view that cows are like our mother. If it is so then i ask them to visit the dairy farm and see for themselves how these "mothers" are treated, how they are chained, made to stand in their own feces, injected with oxotocin so that they can milk more, and are made to bear many other inhuman treatment (check PETA India site or a blog by a Vegan for more detail, as i am not feeling it right to discuss here now about the things of which you don't even considers checking morality, maybe some next time) which, if you truly love your mother, won't ever want to happen to her. So how can we tag a cow as a mother if we continue to treat her like that or how can we do all this stuff if we respect her as a mother?
Now, they say cow is divine, if it is so, then how can we make her bear so much pain that we inflict on her in order to get some milk, or if we inflict so much pain on her how can we call her divine? I don't know whether she is like a mother or divine, all i know is that she don't deserve the wrong that happens to her.
People also talk about the implication of Veganism on health raising the question that from where would i be getting all the required nutrients and vitamins, highlighting the rumor that Vegan are pale and weak. Well, to this i can say that its a complete lie that Vegans are weak because i have been a Vegan now for almost one whole year and i am happy to say that by managing the diet properly, including all necessary minerals and vitamin Vegan source in my diet, i am much healthier in addition to being much happier than i was when i was a Vegetarian.
So, i will like to end this with saying that you don't deserve the wrong you do, so Go Vegan!!