Food for Thought

I was ten. Me and my cousins had fed and played with a goat for days. On the eighth day of Dashain, a group of men led the goat out. We knew exactly what was going to happen. But I guess we liked goat soup too much to protest. None of us said a single word as the goat was beheaded right in front of us. Not even at its pitiful bleat just before the “maar”. Not even when a nearby calf bayed all day long. We looked at each other guiltily. “The calf knows what happened to the goat” said my sister fearfully. “She thinks she is next” whispered my cousin. The heavy feeling hung in the air as we fanned fresh goat entrails.

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Fish were stacked thigh deep in a tank. There was barely enough water to cover them. The ones on top were flipping about, but the squashed ones at the bottom couldn’t even move. Once in a while, one of them would flip right out of the tank and land on the floor with a thud, where it tossed desperately. At that point I truly knew what “fish out of water” meant. More often than not, someone would carelessly step on the jumping fish, splaying its innards far and wide.

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A cute chicken with fluffy feathers and big brown eyes stared at me. Until the butcher pulled it by its neck. I dared not think of what happened to the screaming chicken, though I carried its remains home. I was met by my cat.

It was the cutest thing ever with big brown eyes just like the chicken’s. In another world, that chicken could be someone’s beloved pet. That night I felt like I was eating my own cat.

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I read an article. “How would you feel if an alien dangled a chocolate in front of you? When you leaned forward to take a bite, the chocolate pierced the roof of your mouth. And you were hoisted up bleeding to alien’s lair and thrown into a bin with several other bleeding people?” The imagery haunted me for days. Much later someone told me to think of it as a lip piercing. Oh no, that fish did not want any piercing!

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I read a story. A reluctant hero is forced to go hunting with his friends. The hunters follow a pair of monkeys, mother and child. The hero watches the mother loves and protects its baby, and thinks of his own mother. The hunters chase other animals for hours, but hit nothing, and are frustrated. They turn to the mother-child duo. The hero tries to stop them, but alas, someone fires, and the mother comes tumbling down. The baby runs wailing to its mother, who throws one last accusatory look at the hunters before dying. The baby desperately tries to wake her up. The hero’s heart sank at his inability to stop the cruelty, and so did mine. All the sadness of hearing the calf bay, watching the goat die and fish jump, came crashing down on me. I cried for weeks, and then cried some more. I began noticing random acts of cruelty. Little girls biting the bottoms off of ants, little boys burying dragonflies alive. Hitherto unnoticed Buddhist and Jain literature now leapt out of the pages. “What’s you excuse for still eating meat?” they constantly drummed inside my head. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. As I helped my father cook chicken, I told him I wanted none of it. 

By: Sewa Bhattarai