Why Veganism?

Why Veganism?

I don’t know where to start, but I am Bengali by birth. And from a Bengali family where we love and celebrate eating, once my father and I were coming home. We got around 25-30 (can’t remember the exact number) Rosogolla for some relatives who have come to the house, and we stopped at a Calvert to taste the Rosogolla. We reached home with only 4–6 pieces of Rosogolla.

In my college, when we used to go to the shops outside college for lunch, I used to ask what day it is; irrespective of the reply, I would say, “Accha, today is my non-veg day.” Because in our culture, some people only eat vegetables some days of the week. Most of the time, it’s for religious or sectarian reasons. And some people only follow it when they are in the house.

Vegetarianism never made sense to me. Please read this with an open mind. Maybe it is because of how I have seen vegetarians treat their vegetarianism, like they can eat non-veg outside and not inside. Some heads of the family do not like non-veg inside the house or sometimes a little more light inside the kitchen. Sometimes they eat eggs and try to include eggs in vegetarianism. Also, possibly they are born with it and never feel it or ask questions about cruelty and whatnot. In addition, some vegetables and lentils become non-veg. I don’t understand how, like, masoor dal is non-veg, and onions and garlic are non-veg. Another very funny/not-so-funny thing that happened is some of the puja’s prasad is having meat cooked without onion and garlic, which is called “vegetarian meat.” Potentially, that is why sometimes vegetarians need a pure tag with them to be vegetarian.”

Now I will tell you the story of how I became vegan overnight from a hardcore non-vegetarian.

So when the Covid-19 lockdown started, the local markets used to be completely shut. And the local free-ranging/stray dogs (I don’t like the term street dogs) used to have food from there only; they became kind of starved. I used to have online classes back then. So I only had the time in the night to help. And I also liked the time that it used to be silent and almost no people around. My whole childhood my father used to have lots of pets, also dogs; we had three dogs, one by one. Now, I don’t like the idea of pets. We’ll talk about it some other day. So yeah, I like animals; I let them be, and I used to feed them biscuits, which are made for humans and not for them, which is not ideal at all.

So yeah, one fine day, one of the dogs was trying to play and eat, or I don’t know what it was doing. Jumped on the cage where chickens were kept for selling meat. My brain clicked. I am going so out of my way to feed one but casually eating another. That night I decided I would stop eating meat, and some time after I got to know how cruel dairy is, so dairy as well. I did not know at that time what it was called and what I would eat; later I got to know it is called veganism.

In my experience, most of the non-vegetarians and vegetarians laugh at this incident/story, but most vegans get where I am coming from. That is how it is.