Slavery!

We boast that we have abolished slavery. Spielberg makes a movie on Abraham Lincoln and we watch the movie, with admiration in our eyes (Unless one is a racist) and we pat ourselves on our back! We are smug with the thought that we treat all equally. Gone are the days when the Spanish, the British and other Europeans took people from Africa, Asia and South America as slaves. Gone are the days when the Arabs used to sell slaves at their market. And yet, if you open your eyes you see slavery all around you.


I see them! I see them everyday, leading their miserable lives. They are never allowed to enjoy motherhood. Their children are fed very little or they are discarded in the streets, left to fend for themselves. As I traverse the uneven roads of Bangalore, I see them, rummaging the dustbins looking for food. I see them looking longingly at the various fruits displayed in front of a juice stall. I see them staring intently at vendors who sell jack fruit. The extreme hunger and desire to taste Jack-fruit makes her come close to the cart only to be driven away by a vendor brandishing a stick. And yet from a distance, they stare at food! Delicious food! Food,which is essential to keep them going. Food, which is never enough! And sometimes she wakes up to find her child missing (Victim of a religious sacrifice), or sometimes the child wakes up to see her mother missing! And yet people keep going on with their lives. Most people do not even realize that these atrocities happen on a day to day basis. Most people just do not care! Some people, in India want them to be enslaved further like their cousins in the US!

Let me tell you who I am talking about. Think about all the wonderful food you get to eat . Most people love Pizzas. Many like cheesecakes. You might eat chocolates every once in a while. Who wouldn't like a bowl of ice cream.Let's now picture how you begin your day. Each and every day begins with a cup of coffee to which you add either a creamer or if it's latte or capuccino, you add milk. Almost every kind of food that you love is made up of milk. The next time you enjoy any of these delicacies remember that it is made of milk, produced by a mother to feed her child. Just like a human mother undergoes lactation and feeds her child, a cow feeds her calf. And yet, in the mad rush to make money, the calf is given milk only for short time, after which the milk is palatable to human beings. Then even though it is produced for his/her sake, the calf gets little or no milk. If it is a male calf, he is usually sold or left in the streets to look for food.And the mother is in no better condition. Increasing poverty or greed or both among cowherds force them to feed these overworked mothers very little. They are left to roam the streets and fend for themselves. In a state of extreme distress and hunger, they search desperately for food.

While this is how cows are treated in India, in other countries they are kept alive as long as they can give milk. And sometimes if need be, they are killed mercilessly. And in western countries with huge dairy and meat industries, they are kept locked up in a pen, separated from the calf. They are impregnated all their life through artificial insemination. Their udders are attached to machines that hurt them while milking them and yet they cannot express their pain. Just because someone cannot express pain, does not give me the right to hurt them. And once they cannot provide milk for the diary industry anymore they are taken to the slaughter house to be converted into meat so people can eat her.

The next time you eat beef, remember, the cheese that you had earlier, or the cream in the dessert that you eat later contains milk that was supposed to feed a cow's child. You take the milk meant for the child. That means you should treat her like a mother. But on the contrary you eat her as a steak! And yet we proudly proclaim that we are civilized and there is no slavery anywhere.

If you are living in India, then this is my humble request. If you live in an area where there are plenty of cowherds ( and hence plenty of cows), please refrain from using plastic bags and please do not throw them in the streets. The cows in India are ill fed and left to fend for themselves in the street. The extreme hunger drives cows to rummage dustbins and they end up eating plastic bags and other harmful articles which might lead to ill health. The next time you drink a cup of tea or eat a bar of chocolate or eat ice cream..ask yourself, you are eating or drinking a product made out of milk, that was meant to feed a calf. And yet most of the cows living in your vicinity spend their days roaming the streets looking for food. It wouldn't hurt to feed them with a few fruits/vegetables or rice. You are after all being fed by one of her kind! It is pathetic to see that in a country where cows are revered, this is how they are treated!

And if you live in nations where diary and meat industries exploit animals and enslave them, then I would recommend a vegan life style. In the US, I found there were lot of non diary options. If you think it is hard for you to follow this, think how hard it must be for those who are enslaved, and for those who cannot express their pain and anguish.  If you are a vegetarian living in a country where animals are enslaved and tortured for that quart of milk that you regularly buy from Walmarts and Targets, I would recommend a Vegan life style

Vegetarianism and Vegan-ism is a revolution that has already started. This is the next evolution of human kind towards a more cruelty free life style.  All sentient beings have a right to live! Just because someone cannot speak and does not look like me, does not mean I can torture and kill them for my benefit!