Expressions – Bhagwad Jal Park

I’m 27 years old and have been a meat eater all my life. I’ve always loved meat and I still do. Right up until a few months ago, I would proudly proclaim that I was a “pure non vegetarian” and would disdainfully ignore any vegetable preparation on the table. I would consider my meal to be a failure if I so much as touched a vegetable with my knife and fork.

Till a few years ago, I had always held that animals killed for us would never have come into existence in the first place, since we breed them for food. Therefore (my logic went), we had a right to eat them since our net effect was zero. Something like cutting down a tree if we had grown it in the first place. But I’ve come to realize that this reasoning is false. Once life – and when I say life, I mean conscious life – is created (by whatever means), it belongs to itself. We still don’t know how consciousness is formed and so in a sense, we’re not the true creators of it.

But even if we were, we still don’t have the right to do what we want with life that we generate. Otherwise, my mother could kill me since she’s responsible for my birth. I don’t believe in a divine creator, but even if there was one, he or she would have no moral right over my life since once I am created, I am my own person.

Image Credit: Sandra Mora

Going Vegetarian

But even now, this doesn’t stop me from eating meat. I have no ethical problems with eating animals for food as such. Animals can die to feed others – that is the way of nature. But there is something else that gives me pause. Every life form has the right to defend itself. When a tiger kills a deer, the deer can run and the tiger has to earn the right to eat it. In our civilization however, I’ve come to realize that it’s not fair that animals are mechanically killed and eaten by a person who has never even seen them. They have no chance to defend themselves. Doomed from the day they’re born, they are shown no respect and are powerless. It is this aspect of their death – more than anything else – that has been troubling me for a while.

I feel comfortable hunting an animal for food. If I had a (fair) weapon and the animal had a good chance of saving itself, I think I could kill it and eat it without ethical problems. The key for me is the knowledge that the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. The way we kill animals these days, it’s just not right they have no means of defense.

These thoughts had been building up in me for a couple of years now. I had reached a tipping point, and had decided that on my return to India (at the end of 2009) I would take the plunge and go vegetarian. The thought gave me nightmares. Vegetables! Me, the confirmed meat eater – it was unimaginable. But I knew I had to do it.

Then something happened that hastened my resolve to go veg by a couple of months. I saw the documentary called “Earthlings”, which revealed the systematic torture of animals who are killed for our food, clothing, and entertainment. That was enough to make me stop eating meat at once. I could not be party to something like that. It was out of the question.

So here I stand – Bhagwad Jal Park – former meat eater extraordinaire. I still love meat. I probably always will. And if I can get it in a way that respects the natural laws of life, I won’t hesitate to eat it. There must be no torture, and no foregone conclusion for the animal. The meat has to be earned by hunting and cause swift death.  But given the way we currently obtain meat, it seems highly unlikely that I would ever get to taste it again…

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Just finished reading Father Goriot (or Pere Goriot) by one of my favorite authors – Honore de Balzac. The highlight of this book is an examination of Parisian society in the post Napoleonic era and how it can cause so much greed for social status that children are willing to sacrifice their parents for it. It also draws attention to the fact that spoiling children and giving them everything they want is one of the worse parenting strategies.

Father Goriot

It also introduces an important character who keeps popping up in Balzac’s other stories – Eugene de Rastignac. Balzac wrote a series of novels where characters from other stories keep floating in and out, while allowing each work to stand alone. Together they comprise the “La comedia Humana” or “The Human Comedy” probably as a counterpoint to Dante Aligieri’s Divine Comedy.

As usual, Balzac brings out the characters beautifully in a tale that will shock you. There are few authors so capable of effectively narrating the morass of upper society and because Balzac lived in a time when such things existed, it allows us to glimpse human nature in a way that we can never do so at this time. And yet since human nature hasn’t changed, we learn about ourselves and how we would behave under similar circumstances.

I’m going to be reading a lot more of Balzac. His earlier Lost Illusions also made a profound impact on me and was my first introduction to his works. Along with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Honore de Balzac has a special place in my heart.

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At the end of WWII, the world woke up to the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. People treated as objects, systematically and efficiently killed, devalued to the point where a guard would think it normal to rip out a victim’s gold capped teeth. It’s as if the world had suddenly gone mad. It horrified us because the guards were just like us – regular people doing their job. We prayed that we would never see the like again and were grateful that it was over. But I learned something last night. It’s not. And I’m the cause.

Before you read further, let me make one thing clear. I’m not exaggerating. None of what I say is for effect. Nothing is overstated. In fact, I find it impossible to use words that are strong enough to state the truth as it is. Anything I say falls short of reality. That is why for the first time on this blog, I am using videos. In spite of being a professional writer, my skills aren’t sufficient to convey what I feel.

Last night my wife and I watched a documentary called “Earthlings.” Remember when you were little, and your parents told you that there was a place called Hell? Where you would burn alive in boiling oil, and were skinned? Last night, I realized that such a place exists. In fact, many do. For the sake of satisfying my trivial wants for clothing, entertainment and “quality” meat, animals are routinely mutilated, tortured, beaten, boiled, and skinned alive. Alive I say. Without anesthesia and without anything to dull the pain. In my name.

Fur Farms

It pains me to have to show this on my blog. I don’t like to manipulate people into feeling something by showing them well arranged footage with stirring music. But in order to convey the horror of what I feel, here is a 30 second clip from the video: (Warning – this is graphic)

Fur Farm in China

These animals have to undergo this brutal torture for being beautiful. Because we feel we have a right to their fur which was given to them by birth for their protection. Because we don’t believe that they have the right to keep it. Such a fur coat sells for $50,000 in US stores. If it were worth a million, it would still not be worth it.

Slaughter Houses

But most people who are reading this will say that they don’t use fur. That only a small handful of rich people can afford to wear genuine fur. This is true. But a very large percentage of us eat meat – including myself. There was once a time when I prided myself on saying “I’m a pure non vegetarian.” I absolutely hate vegetables. I was comfortable with the idea of animals dying for me.

But I never realized they were being tortured.

What I learned from “Earthlings” and confirmed by my own independent research was that all slaughterhouses indulge in the following (and none of it is with anesthesia).

Cows

For cows who are killed for meat and milked, their fate is:

1. Clipping their horns with shears (dehorning)
2. Branding with red hot irons on the face
3. Being made to stand while a machine milks them till they drop and die
4. Being hung up while still alive and drained of blood while they slowly die of asphyxiation

Here’s a 33 second clip showing a cow being branded on the face and dehorned.

Pigs

For Pigs who are killed for meat:

1. Their tails are casually plucked off by hand as the piglets scream in pain
2. Their teeth are ripped out with pliers (so that they don’t bite each other)
3. The male piglets are castrated by hand with the men simply tearing off their testicles. They then dig with their fingers to get the remaining flesh out

Watch this 82 second clip to see how men take pleasure in hitting the pigs, cursing them, tormenting them as part of their job. Here is a 135 second clip showing men ripping off the tails of piglets, cutting their teeth, and tearing out their testicles.

Chickens

For Chickens, the documentary shows little yellow chicks just born, who’re still unaware of what’s going to happen to them – chirping away happily before their misery begins. It’s very tough to watch. This is what happens to them:

1. Their beaks are burnt off so they don’t peck each other
2. To maximize the number of chickens per sq. foot, they’re crowded together in impossible densities
3. In desperation, they peck each other despite their severed beaks. Cannibalism is an everyday affair
4. They are thrown against the wall violently to kill them. Men then come and jump on them to kill those who don’t die.

It’s impossible to describe the casual way in which all this is carried out. Here is a 35 second clip showing them being jumped upon and beaten to death with rods.

Dolphins

Dolphins are then killed in a uniquely cruel manner. The commercial fishers attract a school of dolphins and just injure one to draw a lot of blood. Dolphins never abandon wounded family members and the rest of them flock to their companion and are then brutally caught. To see this happen, here is a 78 second clip.

But there is more. Much much more.

These are not isolated examples. A little bit of research will inform you that this happens everywhere and everyday. The documentary shows how cows in India are slaughtered for leather – how they’re transported to a state where their slaughter is legal, how their tails are repeatedly broken to keep them moving. None of this is isolated. When I first went to the US, I had thought it was better there. I was brutally disillusioned. I now know that it’s much worse.

The better infrastructure for killing in the US means that animals can be treated even more impersonally and brutally. The moment a killing system becomes a system, it becomes horrifying. Motivated by nothing more than profit, large corporations in the US cut corners to push through as many as 10 billion cattle a year. That’s almost twice the human population in just 365 days.

Circuses

We like to think that animals are trained using “positive reinforcement” instead of torturing them. In “Earthlings”, an elephant trainer says that he never uses the rod to hurt the animal. In this 50 second clip we see just how true this is. Notice how the trainer tries to impress upon his apprentice that he must cause the maximum amount of pain in order to successfully train the elephants.

A person like me may find watching these clips is too stressful. But if I eat beef, chicken, or pork I have no right to say that. If those animals can suffer the real torture, I have no right to spare myself the knowledge. After all, can my suffering be compared to theirs?

We are the Nazis

I hate to think that the Holocaust is happening right now. But twist it any way I wish, I can’t deny that it is. The effect that this documentary has produced on me is colossal. I find it very hard to love humans after seeing something like this. I’m not a person who easily gets upset by blood and gore. Not at all. But this is tough – real tough to watch. But I have a responsibility to see it. I must know what I am causing.

Can we stop the Holocaust from continuing? Compared to what these animals are going through, the original Holocaust was a piece of cake. I’m shaken and I have very little energy left. I hope this post has the ability to waken people who read it. To realize what is happening in our name and for our sakes. There is only one thing left for me to do. And I’ll save that for a later post.

People have many different reactions when watching and reading stuff like this. Sometimes we’re not sure ourselves how to feel. Put your thoughts down in the poll below.

You can select any two choices.

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One of the blogs I’ve been following lately is Hari Batti’s Green Light Dhaba which is very close to my heart. It seems that Hari talks about all things that I myself think about and I participate avidly in the discussions on his posts. And so I thought to myself, why not have a guest post from this great guy on my own blog? His is highly popular and my own poor creation gets some new readers as well pointing all my own subscribers and trespassers to a resource which is really going places. So I floated the idea to him, and he has kindly consented to spend his time and energy on a guest post for “Expressions”. Without further ado, here it is!

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It is a real pleasure to be guest posting here; I’ve enjoyed this blog a great deal since I found it a month or so back. I spend most of my time writing in Delhi at the Green Light Dhaba; I’d love to have you stop by there as well, some time.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve made fun of Delhi’s mega malls several times. That is because I think they are symbolic of much of what is wrong with India’s model of urban development. No matter how many basil plants Arjun Sharma, the director of Delhi’s Select City Mall, may have given away this Diwali, there is no escaping the fact that his mall is a disaster from an ecological and economic point of view.

I took my kids to the pair of monstrosities known as the Select City/MGF Metropolitan Malls and we did a little research a few weeks back. (And yes, I did have to compensate them with a round of over-priced iced teas. But I have never pretended to be perfect in matters of personal consumption.)

Here are some of the things we found. First of all, the positive side: malls are designed to make people giddy with excitement! It happened to my kids; it even happened to me, just a little bit.

Where does this feeling come from? Some of it is a result of the fact that suddenly we are in a “market” where we don’t have to jump out of the way of speeding two wheelers. But there are other things malls do to make you feel that way. Look at all the lights; feel the AC; ah, the spray of the water from the fountains. Scarcity has no place in a Delhi mall; neither do really poor people.

It is an intoxicating illusion–if you don’t think too much about what it costs to create and maintain it. (On the way out, I had to wonder whether the bright blue “Riot Control” van permanently parked on the road in front of the mall was part of how that illusion is enforced.)

The Riot Control Van

Of course, the good feeling does not feel so good once you see the price tags of the goods being sold.

You see, high end malls are…expensive! The week before Diwali, Mint ran a big spread on holiday gift ideas. It included things like a Boombox for Rs. 4,199, an iPod for Rs. 11,200, and playing cards in a crocodile skin holder for only Rs. 36,000. This is the kind of stuff you will find in a high-end Delhi mall, and it is terrible for a number of reasons. Aside from the obvious issues of bad taste and dead crocodiles, there is the fact that much of what you find in a mall is imported. From an environmental point of view, that means that a whole lot of stuff had to be shipped a very long way–and shipping is a major source of global CO2 emissions. From the point of view of old fashioned economics, there is another problem caused by all those imported goods: a large part of the money spent at the mall goes straight out of the country. Which means it does very little in terms of creating jobs here. By contrast, when you buy locally grown food or locally made products in your local market, nearly all of the money you spend stays right here in the local economy.

But what about all those workers the mall employs, you ask? In fact, a mall is a very inefficient employment generator, because very little of the money spent in the mall goes to the workers who work there. Of course Arjun Sharma is not going to let me go over his books, but we did speak to one worker who sells brand name handbags ranging from Rs. 1000 all the way up to Rs. 4,200. She earns Rs. 4,500 a month. In other words, one hand bag sells for nearly as much as she earns in a month. If there is a sale on, this woman may sell as much as Rs. 35,000 worth of product over the course of one day.  Malls promote the growth of overseas factories along with a few low wage local jobs.  We can do better than that.

Speaking of employment, it’s not as if the people who do the work of building these malls will ever be able to shop in them; in fact, they live in horrible slums. One of these tent cities occupied the land right outside Select City for years while it was being built. Now it has moved down the road closer to where some other projects are being developed. So as not to offend shoppers, it is hidden behind a tall fence.

The Slums of the Workers

After seeing this, my 9 year old asked me this: “Instead of building another mall, why don’t the workers build homes for themselves?”

I tried to explain about how people who invest money to build things want to make more money, and they think building a mall will give them more profits than building homes for poor people. “It’s how the game works, son,” I said.

“But it’s not a game. It’s life,” was his answer.

There wasn’t much I could say to that, of course, because he was right; life is not a game and to use such metaphors runs the risk of trivializing things that are not trivial: poverty, environmental degradation, enormous unfairness.

A new mall, like over-consumption in general, is possible and profitable because we don’t pay the full cost of products from the mine to the dump. It is profitable because the monthly wages of the woman who sells you a handbag may not be equal to the price of the handbag itself. It is profitable because we allow the men, women and children who build our malls and our roads and our homes to live outside under tarps.

It will not be easy to encourage investment in sustainable development. Investors won’t change their behavior out of the goodness of their hearts. Somehow, we need to change what is profitable.  We can start by strengthening and enforcing minimum wage laws.  Then we can see to it that companies are not allowed to pollute for free; the full cost (including the cost of pollution and disposal) of all products should be reflected in their price tags. That will make a lot of stuff, especially stuff  that is designed for the dump, more expensive. If we do this, we will have to consume fewer material goods; if we do it right, we can compensate by consuming more things that are sustainable: art, leisure time, good food, clean water etc.

Figuring out how to make all this happen will be a complicated business, but it’s not impossible, and it’s terribly important that we start soon. We need to change the way we do business; to do this we’ll to change the rules of the game. The rules of life.

HB

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This command should have already been written by someone. Unfortunately all the versions I’ve seen till now either don’t work or are not compatible with Ubiquity 0.5 . So I wrote one on my own. I had to modify the awesomebar noun type for this so that you could see the title of the page as well as the URL link that is going to be inserted. If you’re using Ubiquity with Firefox, the command should have popped up by now for you to subscribe to it.

Here’s a screenshot (click to enlarge):

Insert a link from your history using Ubiquity

When you call the command, simply type in part of the Title or the URL of the page, select your choice from the list and hit Enter. The command will insert the URL at the cursor point. I’ve also noticed some odd behavior in some cases where the suggestion list changes without warning displaying a completely different command after you type in a few characters. This must be due to some optimization problems with Ubiquity’s Parser 2. I’m not sure why it happens.

Other than that, this command should work just fine. Hope you enjoy it!

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Just to keep those who are following updated, the case asking the Womanist Organization of India to prove that women are equal to men in the Bombay HC – note how I’m using Bombay not Mumai; I challenge the Shiv Sena to come get me – has been postponed to the 3rd of November 2009. Apparently the case was heard on the 6th of October (I don’t know why) – I wasn’t able to find that out in advance.

No idea why it was postponed. I’m getting the feeling that this happens with most cases. In the future, I may have an abbreviated way of displaying the notice for a postponed case. But anyway, see you on the 3rd!

If you want to stay updated about this issue, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for this particular court case.

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When I was five or six, I directly caused the death of Floppy – our pet rabbit. A dog grabbed and made off with him to the back of our quarters, while I stood by and watched helplessly. I don’t know what got me thinking about it after all these years, but I was suddenly awash with feelings of guilt, sadness, and oddly enough, forgiveness. He was a cute fellow – like all rabbits I suppose – pure white with red eyes, long ears and soft fur.

One afternoon I wanted to show off Floppy to my friends, and so I took him out of his cage downstairs and we were playing with him. He was on the ground and I remember pinching his tail as he scurried away underneath our car. A dog nearby took notice, crawled up on him and simply ran away with him holding him by the neck. I could only cry out as one of my friends let loose a volley of stones at the dog who succeeded in whisking away the unlucky Floppy.

I was overwhelmed with grief and guilt. It was because of me and my foolishness that this had happened. I went wailing and woke my mother from her siesta. I guess I was also petrified that she would dole out punitive measures against me for taking Floppy out of his cage. There was little to be done. We went and leaned out of our back veranda and what we saw only made me feel worse. There was Floppy lying dead surrounded by the dog and a few of her puppies. That was 20 years ago.

Image Credit: Halans

This is what Floppy looked like when he was alive

I still feel bad about that day. It seemed such a normal afternoon. Floppy had no idea that his life was going to end in a few minutes. He didn’t know that the stupid kid who was taking him out of the cage was the messenger of death. Makes me realize now that one day, I will be Floppy! One day it will be me who will not realize that death is on its way with swift wings that very morning, afternoon, or night. Unnerving.

I also saw that the dog wasn’t at fault. She had starving puppies to care for – and when I saw them at their meal they were very happy, wagging their tails and all. Death to Floppy, happiness to three souls, and all part of the game.

But why do I feel guilty about it? After all, I’ve killed hundreds of mosquitoes, and crushed ants now and then. I’m sure I’ve been indirectly responsible for hundreds of more deaths through my carelessness and stupidity. Why feel so bad over Floppy? Perhaps because it was personal. And because I had to watch Floppy die – but I’ve seen insects die and don’t feel the same way. It’s all very confusing.

One thing I know. The larger the creature, the more guilty we feel over its death. I wouldn’t want to shoot an elephant, but wouldn’t feel so bad if I killed a rat. It may have to do with watching them struggle. I’m sure if I actually saw the mosquito dying, and heard it’s death cry I wouldn’t be so at peace. Lately I don’t kill anything willingly. Even spiders that climb over me or insects on my bed. I try my best to lift them on a piece of paper and throw them out. After all, their life is as important to them as mine is to me isn’t it? So why should I end their life unnecessarily?

I wonder if Floppy has forgiven me? After all no matter what I do now, I did kill him then. I only hope he realizes I’m sorry for it and doesn’t judge a little kid too harshly…

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Well, the UID fingerprinting scheme is now finalized. And they’re not taking just one, but fingerprints from all ten fingers! Well, I suppose we should be grateful they’re not scanning our eyes and taking saliva samples – yet.

It turns out that the handing over (Or fingering over? Wish we could really give them the finger ) of the prints will be mandatory and will have to be implemented wherever you have to hand over identification – such as banks, passport offices and ration card offices etc. Hopefully we’ll have to do it just once and be done with it.

So here’s what the plan is for these guys. All current identification cards will initially have their own ID numbers as is the case now, with the UID also being present. As time goes by, the other ID will be phased out and all that will remain will be the UID. The National Authority for Unique Identity (NAUI) and other institutions will then verify your identity when you visit say a bank by taking your fingerprints as well as your UID and query the database (sounds so Orwellian!) which will then either confirm or deny that you are….well you!

Image Credit: Mr Jaded

Fingerprints being collected for the UID

I’m paranoid enough to observe a sort of sinister progression of matters here. Initially we were told that other forms of identity would maintain their own IDs and now we’re told they’ll be phased out. We were told the UID would be voluntary with no card at all, and now we find that we have to give our fingerprints whenever we show our regular IDs and that the UID will be attached to other cards and not its own. Is the scope of this program going to expand even further?

I think it will. The temptation to use the UID in a more and more invasive manner will be too strong for the government to resist. Our only hope here is that Nilekani seems to be paying a good deal of attention to privacy related issues by consulting lawyers and other experts. Let’s hope it’s enough and he leaves enough power in the hands of the people without allowing the government to do whatever they want.

We need proper legislation to ensure that this scheme doesn’t go beyond its bounds and remains confined to a strict agenda only.

What do you think?

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There’s always a sense of loss when a nice series comes to an end. I grow emotionally attached to the characters, their weaknesses and their strengths, and feel sad when I realize I won’t know what’s happening to them after the books end. The longer the series, the greater the loss. It happened with the Wheel of Time series as well as His Dark Materials and now with The Runelords as well.

The Runelords is a special type of series by David Farland. The magic system is special and has a unique emotional impact compared to those found in other works.

Book Review of The Runelords (Earth King Series)

Not to spoil the plot here, but this much I can say: In Farland’s world, anyone can give away his or her attributes to another. Special attributes like strength, beauty, grace, stamina, or metabolism. The downside is that the giver loses them completely, and is rendered helpless. So there’s a price attached to giving endowments as they’re called, and the receiver has to live with the guilt of having ruined another’s life. People who give brawn might find their heart doesn’t have anymore strength to beat, and people who give Wit might forget how to breathe.

This series also has a fantastic villain. Perhaps the best villain in any fantasy series I’ve read till now. You so love to hate him! It’s almost too delicious to be true . Unlike other fantasy works, the evil here is personal – not some Dark Lord wanting impersonal dominion. Here the evil guy wants you. And it’s not your life that he wants, but everything.

I’ve finished the four books which comprise the “Earth King Series.” The story achieves closure. The next starts a new series called “The Scions of the Earth” which begins around 8 years after the last book. I would read it, if only it was complete – but it’s not. And I like a series to tie up all loose ends. So I’ll go tackle a few classics now instead

Read this book if you want to feel sad, happy, or pensive. It’s emotional catharsis!

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I’ve often wondered how things can be produced and sold so cheaply. Stuff that takes centuries to degrade and travels half the world to reach a customer costs so little that I get the sneaking suspicion that someone else is paying the price for it. Indeed someone is.

Tirupur, known as the “Knitwear Capital of India”, produces most of the garments that originate in India and find their way all over the world. The garments are cheap. Overly cheap. In reality, they cost far more. The real cost of the garments is paid by the people and other living creatures of Tirupur who have to live near the Noyyal River that’s contaminated by the textile producing factories. The sludge in the water has been building up over generations.

Image Credit: TamilBuddy

Noyyal River Sludge

Finally, someone decided to make the factories pay the full price of the garments they produce. The Noyyal River Ayacutdars Protection Association (whew!) made them pay 55.6 Cr for  the treatment of the river as well as for pollution checks. Well they tried to anyway. Predictably, the factories fought it tooth and nail. But the Supreme Court had the final word. And very sweet words they were too. Here they are:

“Undoubtedly, there has been unabated pollution by the members of the appellant association (factories). They cannot escape the responsibility to meet the expenses of reversing the ecological damage. They are bound to meet the expenses of removing the sludge from the river and also for cleaning the dam. The principles of `polluters pay’ and `precautionary principle’ have to be read with the doctrine of sustainable development.”

Awesome. Like all judicial judgments, this one can be cited in the future for other similar cases – and since it’s pronounced by the Supreme Court of India itself, it can be applied anywhere in the country. You want to pollute? Pay for it. This is one for the history books. Corporations can no longer deny the sole responsibility of cleaning up the muck they produce. Of course, this may lead to higher costs for the final products, but that’s the burden we all have to bear. That’s the real cost you’re paying!

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