Hesitation

 

I can speak, argue, debate, or shout -  on a one to one basis but cannot talk to a crowd, more so if it is formal.

This hesitation kept me from addressing children regarding the rights of animals and about how we treat them -   though one of the reasons I closed shop was to do exactly that. (I was a practising ophthalmologist....)

And of course in the recent past The  Corona Virus kept me back.

But the wish to spread this awareness about the sufferings of animals, especially factory farmed ones and the dairy cattles was, and is, deeply rooted in my mind and the thought just refuses to go away.

So as a kind of smooth and easy start, I decided to have a rehearsal and a sort of initiation of my vegan advocacy..... with my two nieces  who live in another city, as an audience,  hazarding a guess that it will give me an idea, as to how to approach a large gathering.

One of the nieces is married and her husband's business is Hatcheries...

I went all the same, and interacted with the two of them for 2-3 days...

They being the dear ones they always are, like their mother - my cousin, willingly listened to me and asked many relevant ( all the usual that we see on fb daily) questions, about lifestock overcrowding the earth if released, plants having life and about artificial rearing of plants and mono cropping agriculture.

Surprising how  the questions are same world over......which probably should teach us something - what it exactly is eludes me...🤔

In reality we had a good holiday, with my sons also visiting for a couple of days .. a lot of chatting, laughing and  farm visits.

Them eating meat and me eating vegan food...along with some mockery from my son .

I did not carry the commercial vegan milk packets that I usually stock at home, and had to take my coffee black.

I love black coffee, but an occasional South Indian hot filter coffee with some milk(vegan)would have been welcome.

My niece who had recently delivered a beautiful baby girl, had excess milk which she collected in sterile packs, froze them and sent them to hospitals for babies in the neonatal care units, for the premature babys' feeds.

Seeing my craving for milky coffee she had the idea of donating some for me and asked me to take a packet from the fridge .

I said yes, but just could not bring myself to do it... seemed a bit weird and I was not comfortable with taking cofee made with human breast milk.

To be frank I am not sure about the reason for my hesitation....

The rest of my stay was with black coffee... occasionally with coconut milk, which was actually very good.

I look at the arguments in social media like fb and wats app groups, regarding the ownership of the cattle and other livestock milk'....whether it belongs to the offspring of the cattle

or human beings...! 🤭 Funny how this obvious fact has to be EXPLAINED!

But the majority of the most intelligent species on earth are not able to grasp this reasoning or maybe some of them do understand...but unwilling to accept it?

Whenever i post such an explanation in fb, I am reminded of this incident - that I could'nt bring myself to consume human breast milk which was willingly and generously donated by the mother herself....

I who had been drinking cows' breast milk all these years, forced from the cow, at all stages starting from collection of semen, artificial insemination, killing of male calves and in the end killing the mother too.

I became a vegan only recently.

I cannot understand the inability of  our brains to go beyond societal indoctrination....which makes us take dairy milk and consume it day in and day out, as milk, tea, coffee, paneer, butter, cheese, ghee, milk sweets and  cream( one of my all time favourites...😀 consumed by the litre).

And of course yogurt, curd and the cool butter milk.

Which were always thought to be  harmless and cool for the body...

Maybe it does cool our body, no doubt..but it is never harmless - the , calf who is the rightful  owner of all that milk  was killed for this lovely looking curd and butter milk. ALL  the innocent milk products have murder behind the scene, sooner or later.

I wonder how many of us are OK with that fact, and with the drenching  of a God's idol with this product of rape and murder. 

We should be ok I suppose - when we mercilessly kill the small helpless animals themselves in front of our manmade God idols in the name of sacrifice....why not pour the ill gotten milk on the same idol...?

Who are these Gods who request this?

Does it mean They like to see Their 

children have their throat slit open? 

And if They do so ..are They really the merciful and loving Gods that we often talk about?