… That may make you throw up.
As I was horsing around on Twitter today I found this tweet courtesy of a media house.
Let me give you some background on this groundbreaking quote. Earlier this week, the municipal corporation of Mumbai (where I reside) passed an order banning the sale of beef and mutton for four days, allegedly to appease the followers of Jainism, who began their annual 10 day fast on 10 Sep. Let me say that again. Ban on beef and mutton. Chicken was explicitly allowed to be sold, as were fish and eggs.
The over imaginative people that we are, we spent the last 4 days wondering why other “non veg” foodstuffs were exempt from the ban. We thought beef and mutton both pertain to meat obtained from sacred animals. (albeit sacred to different religions… The Hindus worship cows. Jainism is a religion that believes that ALL creatures are equally sacred.)
Than we thought they were trying to save us few bucks by asking us to buy cheaper meat for a few days.
But this logic had me stumped.
Fish are dead as soon as they are out of the water so they aren’t slaughtered??! Did they willingly fly out of the water and into the waiting nets? Or did they just love your pretty mug and decide to surface to “take a selfie” with a cute duck face? Lack of oxygen apparently implies that a creature isn’t slaughtered… So that’s probably a safe method to take care of your boss eh…?
I’m trying to be as respectful as I can about religions and how politicians interpret them to suit their needs. Because if we are truly a ‘secular’ country… This sort of ban says very little about how tolerant we are about others’ beliefs.
This kind of reasoning sets us back many many years… And make me wish that we never evolved to make it out of the waters in the first place.
P. S. As I wrote this post (through the course of the day) the corporation chickened out (tee hee) and was forced to retract the ban to just 2 days. We could argue that there is simply no rationale as to why a 2 day ban would make people of a religion feel less “offended” than usual… But maybe there’s a logic that will follow in a tweet tomorrow. Like how 2 is the only even prime number less than 10 (duh of course) and how even numbers are more auspicious than odd ones.
Do you have any ideas on why chicken is exempt from the ban? Tell me… Or tweet about it 😉
P. P. S. In a juicy twist to this meaty controversy, the High Court has (apparently read my blog and) stayed the ban on meat on the same grounds that I rubbished it in the first place – why only certain non-vegetarian foodstuffs and why only certain days!! While it is still unclear on whether I will be inducted into the bench in order to assist them in their future efforts to keep this city safe (and sane), this fellow vegetarian blogger is happy to announce that the ban has been er… banned. Two negatives make a positive. Math lives on!
Arbit is as Arbit does 