Vegetarianism

While reading the article “Let us make this a compassionate Easter” (April 7), I remembered an incident that took place decades ago during my school days. One of our teachers was a hardcore promoter of vegetarianism. He spared no chance to drive home the benefits of being vegetarian. Most of us, hailing from the coastal belt, were fishetarian and very much bored with his frequent rhetoric.

Once, as he was narrating the pain and anxiety animals suffer during the slaughter, I reminded him that plants too went through such experience and that a slim tree under a bushy big tree grew in a slanting posture to escape the neighbour's shadow, which was a glaring example of its awareness. So killing plants, I said, was no less sinful. A cane with lightning speed kissed my tender thigh. It was the answer to my innocent (?) remark.

V. Ramachandran,

Ambalapuzha