Veg Out?

When I was eleven I was harassed by my fellow classmates for bringing meat for my school lunch.
That morning my mother had committed the ultimate felony. She packed me an unholy lunch to open up in front of twenty odd conservative south Indian girls.(The boys missed the drama because we simply didn't sit in mixed groups at the time). I really didn't understand how horrific my lunch looked to them at the time ,but I soon found out

I was pretty much unpopular at the time. there were very good reasons for this. First off, I was already the confused recently U.S.A returned kid, who had just about gotten used to lumpy squares of lasagna and sloppy Joe lunches. Suddenly I was frisked to India and told lunches were now to consist of roties and vegetables spiced with things that stained my uniform. I was pretty accommodating of the changes ,and in fact dying to fit in.

The girls would bring their benign Idlis- the white rice cake, the substance of all basic south Indian breakfasts- that somehow became a quick and easy way for mothers to stuff into their children's tiffen and make it "lunch" by throwing in some coconut chutney and sometimes jam.
I had noticed this and had ordered my mother to pack me Idlies (as opposed to the much too north Indian alu dum and roti) . So she did, and their were some very memorable,bonding,normal lunches, where I didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Then the ill fated day arrived. The morning my mother thought it was OK to pack Idlies that were speckled with MEAT....in them!!
I opened my box and began to eat these idlies while trying to cover the fact that they had
murderous brown spots of cow slaughter all over them.
It was futile. One girl squealed "Is that meat in your IDLI????!!!"
An uproar followed,gasps, mean spitted giggles and blatant pointing.
see, not only did I break the rule by bringing the dreaded "non veg" to school ,but I had dared to create a monster out of the soft,cuddly,safe vegetarian Idli.

A meat idli is basically an abnormality, a freak ,an oxymoron if you will.
The kids, wore disgusted faces, and then said something about my mother being "American" and this was the only explainable reason to have got "meat idlies" to school. The logic to this was profoundly stupid. I remember thinking that even way back then. But I shut up, since I was one against twenty.

The result of the above incident- I brought vegetarian lunches for the rest of fifth and sixth standard(grade). In the seventh standard for some reason -I owe it to being either being likable
enough for them not to care what I ate or them loosing their harsh judgemental nature- I ate meat, though I never brought meat idlies to school again.

Skip about a decade and a half I have actually thought that I should become a vegetarian.
I have many reasons for this- the first one is that I keep telling my self-
well If I am so dead against Capitol Punishment, and care about human rights and such then who am I to say - well I am human thus superior, thus I can eat you sweet little prancing chicken!And you too gentle cow, and you happy muddy piglet!!

All of them too have emotion, and are capable of feeling fear (the jury is still out on fish).
The problem is after being brought up a meat eater for twenty five years, it is just a tad daunting to eat without the meat. More than anything else I forget that I am eating chicken or fish on my "lets practice being vegetarian day".
All that said, I am now ready to move to the next step of being an actual practicing vegetarian.Well I shall eat eggs. Why you ask? Because I am pro choice- so I can eat eggs if I think a zygote is not a human right? In some sick way that does make sense.
I find it actually pretty damn easy to be a veggie in India, where everything yummy is usually veggie anyways, especially in Bangalore. Its the USA that so much harder, but I think I ll get it.
I am in no way being judgemental of happy meat eaters, but I did want to put this up as a personal affirmation.
So, bossy,immature, bully fifth grader girls- you win.fifteen years later I turn into the vegetarian school mate you wished for.
But I am sure half of you little hypocritical wusses are eating meat now- behind your mothers back!!!