The first thing I refused to do when I landed here on this earth was to eat the things my mother cooked. Beef, mutton, chicken, fish, what's all this? Are humans still cannibals? Yes, I mean cannibals - eating one of their own kind, or why else would we have pets?? I would see them munching the pieces of dead animals like it were so delicious and I would wonder, starry eyed, how on earth? Putrid, pungent, ugly looking, the bare corpses of once living creatures, Cheeesh!!

I ticked off beef from my menu at my auntie's wedding in Silchar.¹ A young calf was tied to a bamboo pole for two days. We became pals in my simple childish way and the first thing I did in the morning was to greet it with something to eat, amused at how its short tail twitched to and fro, warding off flies. It would kneel its head so slowly and pull the grass so gently as if being careful not to hurt the green shrubs. It would moo contentedly, quietly looking here and there with round black eyes, and then they caught hold of it, patting it on its back like saying, “atta boy! Don't worry, very soon you will be laid apart and we'll chop you into horu, horu² pieces and pour all of it on that big pot over the fire out there and stir you along with fifteen different kinds of moshlas³ until you become brown and chewable.” “Ummm.” (Swallowing saliva). Their ears were oblivious to its shrieking when its neck was sliced apart, fighting with fear, tossing and jumping on the ground while its blood splattered everywhere, as much as twenty feet from the slaughter site. The convulsions slowly stopped and became less and less frequent until it was still and its soul had found release from its shelter and went away, leaving me to stare at its disconnected head, tilted on its side with its large eyes looking at me and not seeing me, lifeless and still, as if to tell me, “look what they have done just because your auntie is getting wed and people want to rejoice the occasion.”

Somebody picked me up from behind as I was huddled like that, watching the gory activities of my elders, but I did not feel anything much, except for the plaintive eyes of my cow and the handfuls of grass that I had fed it for two days.

In the kitchen, my mother and a whole lot of ladies were busy cutting onions and grinding different spices and after everything was done, there was my friend - the cow - in front of me, in a plate full of steaming rice, brown and looking like yesterday's shit. We were seated on the floor, in a bamboo mat and I was washed and bathed for this ordeal which was to follow. I turned to my mother, pleading no, I don't want to have this, I wanted dal² yes, where was my dal? A stupid looking auntie started saying how will I grow up if I did not eat everything that came in front of me? Then I had to grow up and become a man (read MCP) and then marry a beautiful bride?? No! No! No! We'll see to that later, if I grew up at all, but for now and from now on, don't ever bring this stuff in front of me!!! And that was it. I kicked the plate away and started one of those terrific tantrums which were so disgusting, but so effective!

Goats were another matter altogether. There was a tall Nepali lady I remember, and she used to bring her half a dozen goats to graze on our lawn and we kids loved to chase those goats from behind while the lady got furious. The melee that followed was great fun and the goats always looked so foolish, as there was not an iota of intelligence inside their brains. There were some with a stupid bush of beard on their chins and I would feel like pulling one by its beard and give it a stinging slap, to bring it to its senses. Sometimes, dad would not get good beef in the market so he would bring mutton and it would be the same thing for me. It tasted bad, smelled rotten before cooking, so that's what I'd do. My potato fries and dal and nothing was more delectable. There was only one thing I loved to do with the mutton bones my folks had devoured and left uneaten. Take the plate full of the remains and start a fight among the cats and dogs waiting outside. It was first rate entertainment to watch the dogs and bitches fight one another for the pieces I scattered among them, and the cats lingering slyly in the distance, but I would let only my favorite one to lap up the treat.

Newborn chicks were a hit with me. Nothing in the world pleased me more than to stare at the sight of those tiny cute chicks following their proud mother hen around the backyard of our home. Once in a while I would trap one in my hands and it would Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! so loudly while its mother strained its neck, looking concerned. Then I would let the chick go and it would scamper fast to join the troop once again in the great expedition of earthworms and insects and what-have-you. Sometimes our hen would locate a particularly interesting creature, then she would kill it by pecking it with her sharp beak to give to her kids, while I watched them crouching over their discovery, nibbling at it with their tiny yellow beaks, fascinated.

But this was not how it was always. It would be chicken on Sundays and on special holidays when Abba decided to have an exotic dish for lunch or supper. A special dish cooked with ghee and all. So I would be called to be an accomplice to murder or rather, to help dad slaughter a chicken. Now, escaping the Bigg Boss was easier said than done, so I would wince, turn away my eyes and just live through the whole thing. My father would mutter some holy words I never knew what they were supposed to mean, announcing to God, “Behold! I am going to eat this!!” Mother would later sit with a big knife tearing the chicken to shreds and pulling out all its intestines and organs while I watched from a distance with my fingers tightly clasping my nose and breathing through the mouth, like I did when I went to the toilet. To look at her cutting away, with all her fingers covered with blood, she had become such an expert at it! With a lot of mixed emotions, only that particular piece of chicken leg managed to get through into my mouth and make the long journey towards the ravenous destination - my tummy. Not the rest of it, certainly! Meanwhile, the folks would shuffle noisily through the contents of the utensil trying to locate another weird piece of DEAD meat and then sit down on a moora⁵ to gorge away, absorbed, like this was the sacred mission of life.

My adventure with fish was not any awe-inspiring. I refused to eat those smelly worms of the water like most other things, complaining about the sharp bones but mom squeamishly mixed it with my rice and there I was - munching away to glory - oblivious that nondescript pieces of fish were stealthily mixed with the rest of my food. When you had red, red tomatoes and lots of potatoes peering at you from the plate, who cared?

Nevertheless, with a little protein scattered here and there, I did grow up. Grew up in search of my bride whom I had to tame properly before I could mate her. (Or, how else?) She had to be my type but she turned out to be smarter. It was our second passionate date and we were returning in a crowded city bus when she unobtrusively popped the question - “So, what are your eating habits?” Chinese, I said... and yes, I also like mushrooms and prawn. She looked sly and said, “I am a pucca⁶ vegetarian.”

(.*_*.)

1 Silchar, get an atlas and look up North-east India
2 Horu, small
3 moshlas, masalas, spices
4 Dal, boiled pulses
5 moora, stool made of bamboo
6 pure