Wednesday 20 November 2013

क्या मंज़िल है, किसकी सफलता

इंसान जाग रहा है 
देश पुकार रहा है 
आज आम आदमी खड़ा बोले
तो भ्रष्ट मंत्री बाधा डाले 

बंद कमरे आरोप पड़े 
और कौन, समाज से खुलके बोले? 
'जाँच करो, सब साथ करो 
वक़्त बार ना बर्बाद करो' | 

तुम बोले ये राजनीतिक है ,
तुम सोचे ये क्यूँ खुलें हैं ?
दूध के जले तो हम सब हैं .
पर इस दाल में ना कुछ काला है |

स्थिर हो, रुक जाओ 
आज एक बार फिर विचारो  
क्या इरादा है देश की सफलता 
या हर जागती उमीद मिसलना? 

क्या मंज़िल है सदाचारी स्वतंत्र 
या बेबस हो, दोबार रोना? 
जागते भारत  को अब ना सुल्ाओ  
आम आदमी हो, आम आदमी को सत्ता में लाओ | 

In hope for a brighter tomorrow with India's anti-corruption movement being fought by Aam Aadmi Party.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Vegan By Choice

Being Vegan is not about deprivation. It's about the right ingredients. Being Vegan is not self-torture. It's about preventing torture on a fellow-earthling.

It's now 2 months since I have reduced my footprint of the tyranny. 2 months back I was someone who took pride in the half a liter of milk I consumed everyday. I called it healthy, delicious, required, an obsession. 2 months since, I look back to a Me that I today hope did not exist.

In this brief period, the questions I have been asked by my well-wishers are:

1. I understand meat is death, why milk? Isn't it just sharing resources among the living beings?

First, meat is not just murder. It's death by way of nothing less than a concentration camp. Read how.

Second, milk is not produced by simply and politely milking a cow. Cows, like every other female mammal, produce milk only during and until immediately after pregnancy. Therefore, to keep the milk-flow going, they are artificially impregnated (raped) often. The male calves born, being useless by-products are sent to the slaughter house and the female calves are kept away to ensure that she isn't sucking up the milk produce they worked so hard, to "make".

Cows produce milk just like your mother did and therefore, she does this for her baby and only for her baby. Moreover, if any, it is human milk that our bodies are designed for, which of-course we don't drink after infancy for 2 valid reasons:

- our body doesn't need it 
- our mothers should not be forcibly and repeatedly impregnated for this.

2. But what about Calcium/protein, for you? 

Cow's milk is the number one cause of food allergies in children and this fact clearly explains that human body fights cow's milk. Lactase, the enzyme that works towards digestion of cow's milk, is produced most when humans are less than 2 years old and the production declines thereon- explains that it is unnatural to have milk beyond infancy.

The best sources of calcium are found in açaí, alfalfa sprouts, almonds (234 milligrams per 100 gram serving), apricots, avocados, beans, brazil nuts, broccoli, cabbage, carob, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chickpeas (150 milligrams per 100 gram serving), chlorella, coconut, cornmeal, dandelion greens, dulse, figs, filberts, grains (all), green vegetables (leafy), hazelnuts, hemp (milk/oil/powder/seeds), hijiki sea vegetable (1,400 milligrams per 100 gram serving), kelp, lemon, lentils, lettuce, lucuma powder, maca powder, mango, mesquite powder, millet, miso, nuts, oats, onions, oranges, parsley (203 milligrams per 100 gram serving), prunes, raisins, seaweed, sesame seeds (1,160 milligrams per 100 gram serving), soy (226 milligrams per 100 gram serving), spirulina, sprouts (all), sunflower seeds, watercress, wheatgrass, and yams.

None of these are made from milk. Need more?

Protein- Beans and Tofu (soy-based) are far better sources of protein than any of - milk, yogurt and eggs. How much protein do you really want?

3. What happens to the poor cows if we don't use them for food? They'll be jobless!

This is by far the most ridiculous of the questions that I have come across. But the utter innocence displayed while asking, makes me want to list it here.

Ask yourself- if slavery was the norm today and you the poor slave,

Would you rather not die and not reproduce children, than live a life in shackles where life meant a prison cell and food meant having to be raped? If it meant to have your breast milk sucked out of you only to have your son sent for slaughter (human meat is the most delicious, it's said!) and your daughter made to live in solitude until she hit puberty and then lead a life like yours?

Let Cows not exist if they cannot take care of themselves- to each his own. Only, don't hinder her peace when you can be perfectly healthy without doing that. Don't think you are being noble by enslaving her and calling it 'employment'.

4. Eggs? They're just a chicken's period.

If you've ever seen a commercial poultry, you would have seen and looked away from the plight of these chickens who have don't see sunlight in their entire lifetime. Unless of-course, when even a shed is expensive for profit and a chain does the job.



There are hundreds of them kept in confinements, not even big enough for them to flutter their wings once in a while. Sometimes, if they are lucky they are able to turn a little. Out of frustration most of them begin to beak and hurt each other which is the reason they are de-beaked. Per 'business demands', anesthetics are not used as the costs would be high and the chickens are left bleeding and hurt in the hope that the wound would self-heal. Self heal- it does-eventually.

5. What about pain that plants feel? Environmental impact eating/cutting/cultivating them?

A vegan diet is only an attempt to reduce the extent of harm on other beings. Let's consider for once, that plants feel the exact same or more amount of pain than animals do. This is then, a bigger reason to go vegan!

By eating and consuming animals and animal products, one destroys a lot more plants than what a vegan diet would. When eating animals, humans are at the top of the food chain. We are not only consuming and enslaving the animals, we are also doing this to the great number of plants used to rear this animal for years till slaughter.

A single vegan directly consumes only about one-tenth of the plant material that is either directly or indirectly consumed by a single meat, dairy and egg-eating human. We have fed the now-dead animal a lot more than what we would otherwise directly consume!

Globally, 30% of land area is used for livestock- 70% of amazon deforestation has been done to create grazing-pastures.Now, think about the rain forests that we are always talking about saving, and then clearing them for hamburgers!

6. And the favorite of the non-vegans: Survival of the fittest!

This world is about survival of the fittest- agreed. But never, never defend torture and manhandling of non-human animals as survival of the fittest. You can very well survive and be healthy without misusing another being. What dairy does is not to survive, it is to dictate, rule and enslave.

It is no different from:

- murdering a human for money (both, this and non-vegan food is in the end about getting the luxury of delicious food at the expense of another earthling.)

- raping (both, this and non-vegan food is about desire beyond need and the urge that tempts, can be tamed and controlled. Afterall, we are civilized humans, right?)

The above two are despised by us but how do we not see that both can be defended with the twisted understanding of 'survival of the fittest'- the stronger/wiser gets their desire (need?) met. Why then these double standards when we are all earthlings who deserve to live in a fair world.

Live and Let Live, Once? Maybe? :-)

Thursday 21 February 2013

Animals in cosmetics: Did your lipstick wipe a tear?

Today, it's not easy to go to a cosmetics store and not find the most amazing eye liners and shadows branded with M.A.C., L'Oreal, Chambor, Maybelline, etc. Some of us have even awaited the next month's pocket money to buy that gorgeous galaxy of supernova shades!

Yes, we've all heard about the bunnies and the monkeys whose eyes, ears and nostrils are fed blinding, deafening and life threatening fluids so that we get an end product that doesn't
make us rash
. But do we comfortably forget this fact when the super model poses looking fab in the shimmer on the face? 


Would you have desired the same gloss, had the poster shown it forced on an Earthling with a motive to check if it hurts and exactly how much. Here is a Quick read on the incessant Animal Testing today

Yes! There is something you can do without the need of being a scientist, chemist, biologist! You could choose those companies that test our lipsticks by our ways- the humane ways! Just the way you'd like it.

Take your pick :-)

Brands that (sell in/ship to/available in India) but Don't test on Live Animals: (BUAV certified)


Aftercare Company Available online
Bath and BodyWorks Available with online retailers
Marks & Spencer Available online/physical stores!
Molton Brown Available online
OSEA Available online
The Body Shop Available online/physical stores!


Not in India? Use BUAV's official product search or PETA's official shopping guide for your country.


Next time we go shopping, ensure that your beauty does not cost an Eye. Not this time.

A few popular ones that abuse :-/


1. 3M
2. Johnson & Johnson
3. Veet (Reckitt Benckiser)
4. L'Oreal USA
5. M.A.C.
6. Unilever (Dove, Lux, Axe. Lakme, Ponds, Vaseline, etc.)


Some things might not be as cheap as the baby monkeys and hopping bunnies which could be conveniently used to save costs. So don't worry if it takes a few extra rupees while you save an Earthling.

Disclaimer: I am not professionally associated with any of the companies mentioned in this post. I have discovered these names during my personal attempt to save a fellow earthling. 

Sunday 10 February 2013

Are we living in denial?

It was past midnight one day, when I happened to play a YouTube video while browsing about nothing and everything. I often did this because night was the time I had. That was my own. No work could be done. No grocery could be shopped for.

Little did I know that no morning hereafter would go without recollecting this night- thrice at least. Thrice because on an average, I eat three meals each day.

I have always skipped videos such as this one, conveniently stating,
  • "I know exactly what they're going to blabber. Tell me something new"
  • "I'd rather watch the happy side of life"
  • "I'm in no mood for this"
This one night, I gave them a chance. Just to confirm that they really were here to blabber about nothing I didn't know.

Few minutes into this clip, I realized that while dodging the topic, I was only

"A hypocrite living in denial of what I truly am- a Nazi who's directing a holocaust.

And while explicitly enjoying your meat, if you've dodged these videos too, believe me, you are but my fellow Nazi.

Does being born a human- the powerful, the smarter of the species, make it legit to manhandle every other species for our trivial desires? Did I just say 'Trivial'? Let me correct- a desire so profound, so important, so 'but-obvious!', as supreme as nurturing my darling taste buds. 

Why must I not eat the most delicious?
- I earned it. It's delicious. I can afford it. It's a human need!

well then,

Why must I not rape?
- I spotted her. She's refreshing. I can totally grope her. It's a human need!

Apologies for the insensitive corollary but your rationale is clearly no different from that of a rapist. What we miss in both these instances, is the other living being. You earned it but do they deserve it? 

Darwin's theory can even defend an assault, a rape and every other crime we the HUMANE despise.

Is it really fair to torture her because we desire not just food but the yummiest food? Do you really want to clip her ears and brand her with a flaming rod so that we know it's been tortured in "hygienic" environments? You are dumping her live with 100 others, just so that it is FRESH to chop for the morning salami?

Rubbish? How else do you believe, does a neatly packaged pack of meat appear on the shelf of your neighborhood supermarket? Was it found in a farm- just soiled? Was she playing happily in the field and simply shot in the head?

She WAS playing happily in the field. If what followed was just death- I'd certainly have said she had the best life. 

Sadly, that's exactly what didn't happen. What followed was, suffocation, non-anesthised branding, crippling cages and beating because we don't have all the time in the world for their slow leisurely walks around the slaughter house.

Note to the reader: I'm not anti meat eaters. I'm only requesting you to know your food. To be aware of how it reaches you. Please don't live in denial. 

If you have time to spare today, do watch "Earthlings" today - the single most honest and informative documentary by Nation Earth, about the use of nonhuman animals.

Don't use ignorance as an excuse. Come up with a rationale better than that of the rapist you detest. Be truly proud of your meat while you eat it.