To the Lord of Seven Hills

I am taking a break............

Pappu chala Pardes

Not many posts this month........

......amidst hours spent on Mahabus and the rambunctious BEST no 66- front seat upper level, in Ruby hall Poly OPD and Nair Hospital Anand Bhavan flat 19, wandering through quaintly unfamiliar- now KEM corridors and the disorderly forums on immihelp.com, soothing gadolinum thrombophlebitis and sore Latissmus dorsi, fixing houses and spouse grouses, cycling through Kalyani Nagar Koregaon park Kawde Road Keshavnagar and Kharadi and other heterosexual streets of Pune listening to Enigma, Eagles and Simon and Garfunkel's sweet Mrs Robinson, pushing my petrol budget with experimentations based on the quench effect and 4 stroke faith while the heat burns me amber and pop goes the diesel, doing paper work, more paper work and still more f@#$ing paper work, shopping lemon squeezers, tea strainers, roti belans, kadhais and neck ties, rounding on Kochs, more Kochs and still more f@#$ing Kochs, deciding and undeciding about wasting some time on IPL and finally giving way to inertia , only to be plagued by the guilt of art being long and time fleeting and the muffled drums beating couch po-tick-tack-toeishly................

I didn't get time.

Hope cries
While a moment dies
And time flies
Amidst existential lies

The vegetarian ass

As an epilogue to the Buridan's ass problem, I give you this........distilled from an argument I had with Sanjivani last week- she is an obligate omnivore, and highly opinionated about the same, and I abhor those who can suck the marrow out of a leg piece and crunch on hydroxyapatite remorselessly.

So here goes........

Suppose two people were stranded on an island, some spaceship from the Aandupaandu galaxy offloaded them there by mistake instead of discharging at the restaurant at the end of the universe. Now this is no Blue Lagoon mannaland sadly.The island is one with the bleakest of landscapes such that nothing grows there- not a weed of andropogon or a tuft of grass or even some poison ivy, no animal has ever set foot there, even the fish swim miles away from the coast of this crazy place. Let's call the island Duravida- hard life.There is just a spring which supplies fresh water, so you don't die of dehydration. Get the drift? Well then......

Now

1) Scenario 1: Person 1 is a carnivore, like my friend. He can tolerate the hunger pangs for a few days. But when desperation and hypoglycemia clouds his senses, he will not hesitate to kill his companion to eat him up.

a) Lets say person 2 is also a like minded bloke, thinks exactly like person 1. So one day both, in compos non mentis due to hunger and their unevolved, carnivorous survival of the
fittest instincts egging them on, decide to kill the other to survive. As one delivers the first
blow, the other realizes he has to fight back and machetes the other, the end result being
that both are lethally wounded and don't make it to their goal to eat some meat.

b) If person 2 were a vegetarian- It is against his .....moral gut instinct we shall say......... to kill and eat. He will never think of killing person 1 to eat him. He won't even realize whats on
person 1's mind when he delivers the first blow. Too stunned to hit back, he will eventually
be killed. If he were quick enough to realize his position and strike back in self defense, may
be he might kill person 1, but he will still not eat him.So while person 1 dies of greivious injury, person 2 dies of starvation!!!


Scenario 2) Persons 1 and 2 are herbivores by choice. So even when hunger gnaws at their very person and ATP molecules pop away into oblivion like goli soda, their determination not to kill each other, or even ignorance of the existence of such an option will send them both packing towards the pearly gates where a Mahatma awaits them.

Dulce et decorum est.........


So - what do we have..............both die, one lives, both die, both die.

Result 1-0 for the carnivores.
Shall we say this is a victory for them? Wait a min....... what happens to person 2 after he has killed person 1. There is no ship in sight, none shall ever touch shore there. Not a vulture to kill and feast on!!!!!! He shall eventually starve to his death too, (or maybe even start to eat himself up?!!!!!)

Kya jholl hai!!!!
(Sanjivani's reply: Kahi hi haan!!!!)


This is not my indignation/malafide mudslinging against those who choose to eat meat or any hosannah or piece of propaganda for believers of vegetarianism. It is just a hypothetical situation arising out of an argument. Needless to say, cannibalism, if and where it exists, is strongly condemned by the author