Chicken Wings

So I was eating chicken this other day in mess when suddenly one of the hostel inmates showed up near me and almost screamed, “dude!! You are a brahmin, how can you eat chicken?” After a brief pause and continuous staring in the interim he again screamed, “this chicken is paving your path to hell.” Then he walked away. I looked at the innocent looking piece on my plate and imagined a chicken chaining me and dragging me along the burning path of hell.

At night I saw the same guy voraciously gulping down bottle after bottle of alcohol on the terrace. I walked upto him, “isn’t this forbidden for brahmins?” (Yes, he was a brahmin too.) “Bro…this is cool….i am doing it just for fun and to relieve some stress….its cool…take one sip bro,” he stammered in a typical alcoholic voice. I wondered whether God might have just jotted down some rules and have said ‘follow any 5’ and then put ‘don’t eat chicken’ rule in compulsory section. I just don’t get it, if you are avoiding non-veg just for the purpose of going to heaven then do other stuffs too- like not drinking alcohol, respecting women, giving alms to poor; why just stick to one? And why are people interested whether the other person ends up in heaven or hell? Is it that they are going to form a club in heaven over there where they need bros to chill out with? Honestly, once I am dead and through this world, I don’t give two shits where I end up going afterwards.

I researched a bit to find out what are the origins of this vegetarianism culture among brahmins. I found out various reasons like: -

1.       Utilitarian point of view
India was always a crowded nation that was overpopulated. Given the low water resources and lack of irrigation, raising cattle for meat to feed the bulk of population was found hard. [Most of the Indian cattle have always been malnourished and are more often used for milk rather than meat.] At some point, eating meat became impractical from an economic point of view. Some Brahmins thought they were the ones who were required to lead other Hindus into this vegetarian point of view. 

2.       Dietary reasons
Hindu scriptures divided foods into 3 types - Satva, Rajas, Tamas. Satva includes foodstuff that improves the thinking of the mind (milk, vegetables, fruits). Rajas foods are those that kindles emotions and sensual pleasures (spices, salt) and Tamas foods are those that slows down activities (any food that is hard to digest - lot of grains, meat). Since, the priests are required to concentrate for long times, they were required to take more of Satva food - means cutting out meat, while still consuming other animal products such as milk. 
Also, Satva foods are required to not emit any strong odor. This is because the odor can disturb the mind during meditation. Apart from meat, many orthodox Brahmins also avoid other smelly foods such as Garlic and onion. 

3.       Spiritual reasons
Brahmins are required to spend a lot of time meditating and the act of killing any animal (himsa) can disturb the mind during the meditation. It can bring both guilt and violence in the mind. Apart from avoiding meat, Brahmins were also barred from warfare and any other kind of aggression that can disturb the mind.

People like that guy who was guiding me to heaven had none of the above three reason to not eat chicken. He is insanely rich, he doesn’t meditate and ahimsa-he might probably don’t know its meaning even. There is this other guy who devours non veg on all days but Saturday. Why? So that shani dev don’t get angry with him. Like seriously! That innocent planet out there is happy revolving around the sun, he doesn’t even have telescope on it to see what’s on earth, he is not even aware that people here have named a day after him leave alone getting offended by a miniscule human eating chicken on one day. Then I have this friend who smokes weed whole year but doesn’t touch a cigarette during the month of savan. Why? To get rid of sins!! People bathe in ganga to get rid of sins. What I see is that, they are only polluting the river. The guilt of your sins remain attached to your souls till you don’t do anything to atone them no matter how many savans you spend avoiding smoking and non-veg.

I don’t have anything against vegetarianism. Everyone has their tastes and is free to choose his lifestyle. Vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism-your choice. It’s perfectly fine that you don’t want to eat non veg on particular days, but I want to say that don’t attach unnecessary notions to it and worse, don’t force your beliefs on others. Hinduism is not a religion, it is a way of life…..a very scientific way of life. Whatever is written in our vedas and scriptures have a profound meaning and reason behind it. Try to understand that reason. It harsh but true-some of our rituals may have lost their necessity in today’s era but were really handy in ancient times. For example-throwing of coin in rivers. Earlier the coins were made of copper and brass and these two metals are believed to have purifying effect on water, so that’s why the wise men said ‘honor the river by offering coins’. Now the coins aren’t made of copper, rest you can guess yourself, but still people take all the pains to walk to the door of moving train and throw the coin whenever a river shows up and if they miss it, they mourn in such a way as if they have just discovered they have AIDS. Take another example- the tradition of putting tilak or bindi. We all know about the mythological significance but if you delve into its scientific origins you will find that, that spot between the eyes is a converging point of nerves and that massaging them relieves a person of stress and insomnia. This tradition should be followed, but young guys nowadays are abashed of wearing tilak and going out in public.

The crux is, we are free to choose our way of life. Eating chicken doesn’t define your path to heaven or hell. A chicken is better than that chick who said she will give life for you and then left you…..a chicken actually gave life for you. Most of the people don’t know where they are heading to next weekend but are overly cautious in deciding that after death they want to go to heaven. Heaven or hell….what’s the difference? Once you are dead, you are dead!!