Back to Main

Nandita Bose, Principal, Disciple, Mother and Dancer

Every time I eat an egg, I feel what would have happened if a giant had eaten up the egg that was to be me!But I'm trying not to eat. But it is a very deep seated breakfast habit.

Every time I feel like eating fish, I see shoals of fish in the river in Nainital, with the sun making designs on their happy, glistening bodies. Their movements are quick, split-second dance movements as they come up to the surface to eat atta balls and puffed rice. So the fish on our plate could be someone's mummy or aunt or playmate caught in the net!

The chicken is the bird whose feathers are plucked mercilessly and whose neck is twisted and cut. They travel upside down, their legs tied together on cycles and carts and are one of the cruelest sights of human behavior that I can recall. What if some cannibalistic giant did the same to us one day? I remember the beautiful wild hens that have often crossed our paths while we drove through forests.

Do we see the tender, funny light in the goat's eyes -- the softness and warmth of the kid's body against ours if you pick them up? And we eat them, part by part -- and ask the butcher to give us our share -- what if someone sold human flesh one day exactly the same way?

And yet turning vegetarian is an act of constant remembrance of compassion and can be only accomplished by talking to your own emotional body and by the help and assistance of the Divine.

I am happy to note that I keep more on the path than fail.