MY NAME IS VAMSI KRISHNA AND I AM NON-VEGETARIAN

My name is Vamsi Krishna Reddy and I’m non-vegetarian. I’m not slightly non-vegetarian, in that odd Indian way that draws the line at chicken and egg. I’m all in, with both my feet. I eat any and all poultry, seafood, and, if you can manage to cook them right in a delicate honey-mustard glaze, both my feet. I considered going vegetarian once for an year recently, but luckily the LSD wore off before I could jump off that cliff.
Recently I made chicken Biryani and posted it on Facebook and Vegetarians started to ask me strange questions like “Will you stop eating meat?” or “Why not go vegetarian?” and “Want to go for Jab Tak Hai Jaan?” The answer to all three questions is of course “No. Katrina Kaif’s lips scare me.” The truth of the matter is more complicated; I respect hard work. And it took us millions of years of hard work to fight our way to the top of the food-chain. So to not eat the meat that our ancestors worked so hard to dominate would be to fail them and the ideals that they strived, spit and roasted for.

Except, it’s hard being non-vegetarian in Gujarat where I am living right now. Aside from the reproachful looks of judgment you get from the ‘ethical’ vegetarians, you have to deal with groups who judge you on grounds deemed religious and moral. You’re told that if you eat beef, the Hindu god will spank you. Do Indian vegetarians imagine a command-center up in the sky, where a giant red light goes off every time I eat meat? That would be cool:

Man at computer: Sir, we’re picking up chatter about some horrible goings-on in India.
God: Is it the UPA again? We’ve already cursed them with Digvijay Singh, I’m out of punishment ideas really.
Man: No sir. It’s much worse. A man just ordered a special mixed-meat grill.
God: May God have mercy on us all.
Man: Ugh, I hate people who refer to themselves in the third-person.
God: Stop fooling around. That man just ate crab-meat. Cancel my appointments on world hunger, infectious diseases, and genocide. Dear God this is serious.
Man: No seriously Prakash, stop with the third person.
I’d be okay defending my non-vegetarianism if it were something I had to do as a part of dinner-table debate, but it isn’t. We live in a country where what you eat can mean the difference between being offered or denied an actual life-choice.

And now, a school-textbook for kids in the sixth standard has been found, that says the following about us non-vegetarians: “They easily cheat, tell lies, they forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes.”
When I was in the sixth standard, you could have written “The world is triangular and made of chicken nuggets” and I would have believed it. Because I was conditioned to believe that textbooks contain academic certainties and facts, not the illiterate opinion of some loathsome uber-vegetarian. And this is what the kids reading these books are going to believe.

But let’s examine the arguments that statement makes; Apparently non-vegetarians “easily cheat, tell lies,” and are dishonest. It’s safe to assume that whoever wrote that book is vegetarian, so clearly lying, cheating and dishonesty aren’t concerns that are exclusive to non-vegetarians. Non-vegetarians are also accused of fighting and turning to violence, which is weird because Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler were vegetarian. Narendra Modi still is. (So is Shahid Kapur, but his crimes against humanity deserve a Blog of their own). And the final accusation in that line is that non-vegetarians “commit sex-crimes.” I challenge any vegetarian out there to be able to even think about sex after a great steak and pie dinner.
I’ve never worn my non-vegetarianism on my sleeve, because I didn’t ever think I had to. But now, as an act of defiance, I will. My non-vegetarianism is awesome. It protects me. From the sanctimonious idiots who believe anything. From housing-societies that thrive on intolerance and ghettoization. And most importantly, from Shahid Kapur.

DIWALI AWAY FROM HOME

I got to know the arrival of Diwali as the photo-tagging frenzy on Face book has begun, with me being in tagged in a million pictures of things that symbolise Diwali, such as diyas, crackers, light-bulbs, burn victims, the superiority of the Aryan race and so on. In an attempt to escape people's sympathies showering on me for not going to home, which is a fucking 40 hours journey from here , I've planned this holiday at Baroda. But I seriously missed my earlier  diwalis I celebrated back at home. Diwali is that once-a-year chance to catch up with neighbours and relatives, so that you can remind yourself why you only meet these people once a year.

 In Baroda I am left with little options left other than watching movies. With Telugu film "Damarukam" not releasing , I ve left with Bollywood films capturing homicidal urges and vapid consumerism, with its annual Diwali Box Office Showdown, which, in this case, is ‘Son of Sardaar’ vs. ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’. JTHJ is the story of SRK falling in love with Katrina and Anushka, because all the other ladies he used to romance are, in Bollywood terms, deceased. Meanwhile, Son of Sardaar stars Ajay Devgn, a man best known for brushing his teeth with dirt. I wondered which one to watch, flipped a coin and before it landed, decided to watch the new Bond movie. It’s called Skyfall and it was pretty great, because for once, 007 relies on his wits and charm, instead of a watch that turns into an invisible plane with great breasts and X-Ray vision so powerful, it can see through Nitin Gadkari’s financial assets. Skyfall is one of those films that you have to watch in theatres, because no Bond film experience is complete without jaw-dropping action, heart-stopping chase sequences, and one Gujarati man in theatre behind you explaining “Jo havve Gems Bond aavse” to his wife, every time things get tense.

I love watching movies in theatres, because the experience has evolved (and because it saves me some download space). Single-screen theatres are being replaced by the multiplex, which comes from the latin word ‘multi’ meaning ‘many’ and ‘plex’ which means ‘everything sounds cooler when it ends in x’. Multiplexes have more screens, so instead of settling for one terrible Akshay Kumar movie, you can now choose between three horrid Akshay Kumar movies, an even worse Jacky Bhagnani one, or a critically-lauded Malayalee film about a man having a six-hour long existential crisis about where the ‘a’ went from Ajay Devgn’s last name.
The arrival of the multiplex has changed the Indian movie going experience. Time was when if you wanted to buy tickets, you called the theatre and asked if they had any, and then took your chances waiting in a long queue, following which you paid Seenu Anna(who seemed to live in a bush outside the theatre) 200 bucks a ticket. This time though, I just booked tickets online, and then waited in an even longer queue to collect them, following which I paid the theatre 200 bucks a ticket and wondered when they made Seenu Anna general manager.

Following this I made my way to the ‘Candy bar’, a snack-stand that does not in fact sell any candy. But that’s okay, because unlike earlier, when all you got was six-day-old popcorn and a bottle of cola whose mouth looked like it had sex with a rusted iron rod, you now have a whole range of options. I know this for a fact because the guy standing in front of me spent a reasonable amount of time choosing from his. He couldn’t tell whether he wanted the cheese-salted-caramel popcorn, or the caramel-salted-cheese popcorn, but two days later he made up his mind and bought a samosa instead.
But then I sat down in that theatre, and waited for the movie to begin, so I could forget all my troubles. But first, we were warned that we must turn our cell phones off before the film, a warning that was obeyed by everyone but the guy sitting next to me. Then, we were warned that we must also not talk during the film. The warning at our theatre said that one must refrain from “talking generally”. Luckily, the guy sitting next to me obeyed that bit of advice. So he turned to his friend and only talked specifically about this queer rash he had in an odd place.

And then the lights went down and I got excited and settled into my seat, only to be told that I must now stand for the national anthem. Now I love our national anthem, but this idea of playing it before every single film to boost patriotism is roughly as sensible as a Kingfisher Airlines business decision. And honestly ,I HATE doing this drama
Because this is what happens in everyone’s head as the anthem ends; “I love India. This is such a beautiful anthem. I really should be more patriotic and pay attention to this great counOOOHHH LOOK IT’S JAMES BOND SLAPPING SOME BADDIE ON TOP OF A REALLY FAST TRAIN”
But Skyfall really is an excellent film, and for all the hoop-jumping theatres make you do, I’d recommend that you watch it in theatres. It has the best plot a Bond film has had in years; Bond goes to SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH where he fights a CIGARETTES KILL and then he meets this beautiful CANCER CANCER DEATH CANCER, and in the end it is revealed that SMOKING CAUSES AIDS IN KITTENS SO DON’T SMOKE.

SHUT UP YOUR HOLE

Formal conversations bore me to death . “Man is a social animal”, droned our Social Studies teacher Mr Satyanarayana in school. Some kids repeated after them and took notes, while others, more inclined towards Biology, kept “accidentally” dropping their erasers and picking them up. I,on the other hand, was thinking ” Is being a social animal really a good thing?”.
It’s a thought that’s stuck in my head all these years. But let’s focus on the whole society thing for now, shall we?
Thousands of years ago, the concept of society was in its infancy. Primitive men, armed with spears and clubs, roamed silently through the wilderness, looking for Chinese food and pepsi. Grunting and scratching one’s crotch were the only forms of communication. As a result, the world was a nice and quiet place, where people spoke only when absolutely necessary.

For e.g:

Inacceptable conversation:
Primitive Man: Grunt Grunt?
(So..wassup?)
Acceptable Conversation:
Primitive Man: Grunt Jhinga Oooga Booga Scratch Scratch!!
(Look out…there’s a sabre-toothed tiger lunging at your ding-dong!!)

So far, so good.

But then things began to change. No one really knew how this happened, but suddenly everyone was supposed to be “civilised”. Why? Because everybody ELSE was being civilised, and nobody wanted to be a “social outcast”, even if they didn’t really know what the term meant.

This had grave repercussions on mankind. It meant getting rid of the body lice that men had grown so fond of. And if that wasn’t enough, “get-togethers” were also invented, where erstwhile grunters and scratchers had to actually TALK to other people. This practice evolved to become the modern social phenomenon called “Small Talk” or “Chit Chat” (I believe the scientific term for it is “Homicidal-Tendency-Inducing Vapid Verbal Ejaculation.”)

As with most people, I was introduced to this phenomenon at a tender age. There I was, a precocious toddler, busy sticking crayons up my nose, when all of a sudden, there appeared a voluminous mass of whale blubber wrapped in a sari. It pulled at my cheeks, messed up my hair (NOTE TO THE WORLD IN GENERAL: You NEVER mess with my hair!) and asked me if I knew the alphabet.

“Of course I do! “, I said. “F is for F*** You, Can I Go Play With My He-Man Now?”

Ok so I didn’t really say that. Blame my manners on the absence of cable TV.

Things didn’t really improve in the coming years, as random guests dropped by and amused themselves by testing my memory.

Uncleji: “Helllooo beta..remember me? Ehehehe..I had come to your parents’ wedding..”
Me(thinking): Hey retard..I wasn’t present at my parents’ wedding. They’re not exactly Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar  y’know.

Actual Response: “Umm..no Uncle, I’m sorry I don’t.”

Uncleji:“..then I saw you when you were one year old..you have grown SO big beta..it’s amazing!”
Me(thinking): Not really. You see, every night my parents bury me six feet under, and sprinkle on me water and fertilisers enriched with DNA extracted from Dara Singh’s earwax.

Actual Response: (a constipated smile)

And so it continued, the filling up of spaces with meaningless chatter. The lift, the grocery store and even my own bedroom – no place was safe. There were kindly senior citizens who asked me what college I went to EVERY SINGLE TIME they met me (VR  College Of Engineering, if you must know), while others discussed job prospects, the weather, Laloo Prasad’s third nipple and other such scintillating topics. The ‘civilised’ Me smiled and faced it all, thus saving the actual Me from getting thrown out of the house.

But then my generation grew up, and boring chatter ceased to be the domain of the ‘Unclejis’. The Internet, originally developed by the US Department of Defense as a storehouse for Jenna Jameson videos, degenerated into a fertile sowing ground for Small Talk. As a result, there was born an intrepid race of friends, foes and people you talked to for 30 seconds in 1997, that has made it their life’s mission to scrap, buzz, tag and poke the living bejeezus out of you. Armed with the intellect of a retarded snail, they leave their droppings all over the web. Like this:

1st Post:
Hieeee…wasssuppp?
(Two days later)
2nd Post:
Hieeee…u dnt reply 2 my scraps..bhul gaye?
.
.
.
.
(20 Messages later)

hieee…u still nt replied 2 a single post..y..wat happ..anyway wassup..
To this, the actual (ok fine, uncivilised) Me would say:
You wanna know why I haven’t replied? Let’s see now. Maybe I’m too busy having a life. Maybe you have the charm of a gooey butt-pimple. Maybe I’d rather have my pecker pecked by a woodpecker, than engage in a conversation with you. Get over it.
But of course, the civilised Me does no such thing. After all, I wouldn’t want to be a social outcast now, would I?