MEAT

"Hey dad, so whats for Christmas?" Alan was asking.

Dad was getting ready for his evening trip to the market.  I had my eyes and focus on my mobile when I called out, "I'm turning vegetarian."

"Okay," daddy said and made his way out with the market bag.

Of course, nobody took me seriously when I said such things.  Especially when this was the zth time I was declaring vegetarianism. 

I remember the first time I did - dad spent close to half a day in the kitchen making chilli chicken, mutton kababs, hyderabadi biryani and indulged in such other fraudulent activities to make me break my vow.  Plus, he also attempted 'forced cannibalism' (or whatever) by placing the dishes exotica right under my nose.  The aroma attacked my senses most cruelly.  And break my vow, I did.

My subsequent declarations were all, needless to say, met with pointed laughter and eyeball-rollings.

Oh, there's nothing I have against the taste; its just that every time I'm in the middle of tearing off a fleshy chicken thigh, I'm reminded that once upon a lovely time, this leg had walked and hopped and had blood running through it.  Look, I did try to not be gross...

And so almost always, I ditch the side-dish untouched.

Sometimes I simply close my eyes and try not to inhale when I am biting into cooked-flesh (yeah, that's what I'm calling it).  

When I see by the roads, dead goats hanging by their legs, skinless and headless, bloody pink in colour, nausea attacks me if I don't look away right then.  And then this feeling of disgust emerges and I declare solemnly at the table with a shake of my head: I'm turning vegetarian.


Wow look at this one...

If your nose is not wrinkled in disgust, I promise to eat it raw.  (and of course you know that was only a figure of speech).