Bang Bang Galore!
A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg
Blog 13 (My life as a Vegetarian)
Sent: April 2, 2007 12:02:36 AM
I have been outed in Cyberspace for being a fraud and for not checking facts. For those of you who have read my blog about cow worship in India, I am told this notion is pure bullshit.
As I sit underneath a slow blowing fan in this crowded internet café, in a carol the size of my keyboard, I am wondering who I may ask to enlighten me about cow worship in India. I look to my right and see a striking twenty-year-old man who is on a webcam date, tapping away stuccato messages. “U R Soooooo Funny!!!!!” He operates in a universal youth oriented computer language that discourages using full words or proper sentences.
I notice a woman’s face on his screen. The low resolution on his computer monitor makes it difficult to study the face of the woman with whom he is exchanging amorous messages. I imagine she is from a good Hindu household and she is involved in a clandestine affair, sneaking off to an internet café far away from her neighborhood. In Southern India, arranged marriages are the norm. I wonder if this couple is bold enough to challenge their parents. They are connecting in cyberspace. Why annoy them with my silly obsession with cows?
On my left sits a small boned man who looks to be fourteen or fifteen. His name is Raj, and I can see by his resume that he is single and twenty- one. He is coached by an equally pubescent looking male friend on how to improve his resume so that he may gain admittance to the Faculty of Dentistry at Bangalore University. His list of high school and university accomplishments are three pages long. They are in deep focus, re-sizing font texts every few minutes. No, I will disturb them either.
I decide to surf the web and soon stumble across a chat room where a group of Indians are eager to share their views. I learn that the leading insults traded between nuclear neighbours, Pakistan and India involve cow worshippers and terrorists. Muslims from Pakistan goad Indians about their tradition of venerating cows as gods and Hindus return the insult with dividends by calling Pakistan the worldwide headquarters for terrorism. One chat room aquaintance agrees that cows are milk givers and represent the universal symbol of motherhood and should be deified for their sacred milk. The theory sounds reasonable, but no one in this chat room seems convinced this is true.
I decide more research is needed and find a suitable alternate theory on the net. In Vedic times, approximately (900 to 1500 BC) Hindus were indeed flesh eaters. When important dignitaries arrived in villages, a cow was slaughtered, followed by a delicious feast to celebrate the occasion. As the herds began to dwindle, these pastoral folk decided that drinking milk from a cow was one thing, but killing an innocent beast to enjoy its flesh was strictly taboo. And that is how those enlightened people from four thousand years ago created a religion in which vegetarianism became the norm.
Since Hindus have been invested in vegetarian cooking for thousands of years, I decided that this would be my chance to cross over to the other side and the results of been rewarding. The food is amazing, my physical stamina is notably stronger and so far my bowels are intact. It’s only been a couple of weeks. I can live without beef, but I imagine that in another month, I will be craving chicken in a big way.
Lately, I have been sampling as many new vegetarian dishes as possible. Yesterday, I went to an open- air cafeteria and ordered vegetarian biryani. I paid for my meal ticket and proceeded to wait in the cue and as my turn comes, I am shocked when I see a grey haired man in the kitchen mixing a pot of rice with his right hand. He then passes the pot to a man with a lavender turban who then scoops up rice with his right hand and plops it on my plate. Now I am not the world’s most elegant eater, but I am really having a hard time seeing food staff handling food with their hands.
In a country where toilet paper is virtually non- existent, my mind races to imagine my future bouts of hepatitis and dysentery. I tell Mr. Lavendar Turban with the scruffy beard that I suddenly changed my mind about the veggie Biryani. He wobbles his head from side to side and offers me a shy smile. Now in most countries, sideways head wobble means no, but in India, it means yes. “Sir, I am wondering if you can change my dish. I made a mistake, I think I would rather have a veggie samosa.”
He continues to wobble his head from side to side and answers “Yes Sir” but makes no attempt to change the order. “Did you understand what I just said?” I don’t want this dish. “Yes Sir” he nods again. “Well then you can just change the rice dish to the samosas and I will pay the difference.”
Now, I am steamed because he clearly understands me, but pretends everything will be fine once I pay for the samosas. So, in my best gay indignant customer voice I try to explain him that I made a huge mistake and don’t want the rice. No response. Just the same oblique smile. We are at an impasse so I decide it is pointless to argue with him, since he is the only restaurant open in the area and I am starving. I purchase another meal ticket for the samosas and devour them immediately. Since it is late, and I am starving, it is an evening of non- stop snacking on Indian junk food.
Now for the point of all this! In case you are wondering why I am raging about India in these blogs, I must tell you that I am continuing to find daily comical exchanges with people. I am currently working on a film that deals with child labour and am straining to layer my work with comedy. So far it’s been quite a challenge. Do I sound ethnocentric? I am sure I do, but I continue to find humour here in the most unlikely places. So as I rage away on in these blogs, I also have my share of internal laughs. In the meantime, mother India continues to astound me.
