Veganism and Me

Have you come across writings like “Go Vegan” on the walls of the sidewalk? Or perhaps on the street light pillars? I have. It's a common sight in my city. But what does it mean? Let a vegan veteran tell you. 

This is his story. 

2006 was a transformative year for technology. The internet was on the cusp of maturing to a point where it could truly be called a multimedia information interface. From the old, predominantly text and graphics based, and a lot more “innocent” internet, came the new, fast, bold and ambitious internet – one could deliver audio, video and a world of information.  All you had to do was ask!

2006 was a transformative year for me personally. On the new internet, one which was fast enough for multimedia streaming, I came across a video that displayed human cruelty in its worst form. Somehow, I stumbled, a video of a raccoon fur farm in China, wherein, a live raccoon dog was skinned alive for its fur, for racoon fur was/is considered high fashion. Never before had I seen anything like it. For the next few days, I experienced a strange kind of sadness that I had never felt before. Strange because I knew that cruelty existed, but it never affected me, perhaps because it was never in my face like how it was streaming to my laptop. We are generally taught to not worry about things that are out of our control, but this felt too wrong and I couldn’t help but let this sadness overpower my thoughts.

I scoured the internet for any and all information about how animals are exploited for human consumption, its various facets and its consequences. The more I read, and watched, the sadder I became. 

Over the next few days, I gave up meat, eggs, milk and anything that contained animal secretions, which basically meant giving up most of the things that look, smell and taste good to most people, which was once me. This included biscuits, cakes, ice-creams, and readily available foods, footwear, clothes, cosmetics among other things. It was difficult for the first few months to adjust to the sudden void created because of letting go of the things I depended on, over the many years of my existence as a human.

But looking back, if there is anything I could do to re-live those few months, I would, in a heartbeat!

The benefits have been multifold and are enumerated as under.

• Health

I was diagnosed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) in 2004 and was given an orange pill to pop, which I was instructed to consume daily for the rest of my life. I ate it for a year religiously, but come 2006, along with animal products, the orange pill went out of fashion and out of my drawer. IBS was history along with the old me. Additionally I lost 12 Kgs in 2 months because of my highly demanding aerobic workout and abstention all animal fat from my diet. Even though I was never fat to begin with, I did have a slight pot belly, which disappeared spontaneously within a fortnight.

I also remember, spitting phlegm incessantly for many months after turning vegan, experiencing sharper eyesight and improved nasal sensation. I don’t know why it happened, but all the vegans I have spoken to, report having the same experience to varied degree. I do not know if it was because of my loading up on fruits, vegetables, legumes or maybe it was. 

The other calamity of veganism was alcohol. I never liked drinking alcohol. Even if I did drink, I would only consume Wine. However, upon learning that many wines are filtered using dairy derivatives or fishing glass, I gladly gave it up completely. Even though many of the new generation of wines are vegan, I can’t get myself excited to drinking a glass of wine anymore.

Like last season’s fast fashion, refined sugar was out of my life. Most sugar, even in India, is purified using animal bone char. I grew up in a family that loved sugar and as much as I loved it, giving up sugar was a natural progression and wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Most medical research believes that sugar is more harmful and cause of more diseases than fat.

Personally, ever since switching to veganism, I noticed that my immune system could ward off illnesses better. I stopped consuming medicines at the slightest sign of an illness. More recently, during the great covid scare, most of the vegans I know and know of, along with myself, remained unvaccinated and I haven’t heard of any vegans dying in a non-descript hospital. Perhaps it might have to do with a lot less quantity of phlegm in the lungs to begin with. 

• Animals

I have found great comfort knowing that I do not take anything from a grieving mother, whose baby was a product of rape by humans and was slaughtered immediately after birth because its milk was to be sold in the markets so that humans can sell sweets in a sweet shop which would be offered to the gods for god pleasing. I have yet to understand what kind of a God loves offerings that are a product of the murder and torture of its own children.

As a vegan you stand for those who cannot stand for themselves – the ones we have overpowered for thousands of years. It’s a kind of slavery that not many have made a fuss about and have stood against, until millennials and digital natives showed up!

• Planet and world hunger 

I find it funny when I see meat and dairy based foods being served at climate change conferences or when I environmentalists devouring cheese pizza at climate change protest at capitals around the world. You cannot be animal products consuming environmentalist. It has to be one or the other. Animal agriculture takes much more resources in terms of land, water and other things than what it would if we were to switch to animal-free products. It is also the number one polluter of our water-bodies and number one source of greenhouse gases.

When you become a vegan, you stand for all the flora and fauna, for the rainforests and for the all the hungry people around the world who could have been fed if you didn’t want that layer of cheese on your pizza!

• Self-confidence

I was living in the west when I turned vegan, and perhaps that’s one of the things that made it slightly easier, for individualistic societies teach people to respect others’ preferences. No one ridiculed – people asked questions out of curiosity and that’s where it ended. However, in societies infested with “group-think” like India where everyone in our families and broader social circle is a self-appointed “influencer”, it’s a lot more difficult. 

I respect people who turn vegan in India much more than those who do so in the west because of how our families and social structures are knit. Ridicule is a part of social fabric in India; however, I believe that veganism, requires and builds up confidence faster and stronger in this country. 

And I kept going, teaching myself not to worry what anyone thinks, for I knew, deep in my heart, what I was doing and why I was doing it.

• Atheism, Karma, Speciesism

I have observed that there is a normative relationship between speciesism and other prejudices such as racism, sexism, homophobia and so on and so forth. Even though I have been an Atheist for as long as I remember, veganism made me reject the philosophies of organized religion with great scorn, for almost all religions preach that humans are superior to other beings on this plant. It is nothing but ego. I do not think I am superior to anyone and veganism cemented atheism further in my beliefs.

Even if for a moment, I were to believe the philosophy of rebirth and superiority of human beings and the whole nonsense of hundreds of thousands of births that it takes to be born as a human, I believe that I have cleaned my karma to an extent that I would be born again as a human – and I will be a vegan again. And again!

• Spirituality 101 - Dettachment

Central to the vegan philosophy is the belief (which helps with overcoming a sense of self-deprivation) is that when you deprive yourself of something for a cause that you deeply believe in, the universe will (somehow) provide.

Over the next many months after turning vegan, I also gave up things that I never liked to begin with. Consumerism, to begin with; The notion that “I spend, therefore I am”, started appearing more and more hollow. Almost all vegans rebel against the way capitalism has written social rules surrounding consumption, spending and possessions defining our worth as human beings.

I remember passing through aisles of supermarkets, knowing that most of it is no use to me and it slowly lost all its charm. I remember listening to one of Osho’s discourses and one of the discourses mentioning passing through the world without getting stuck in its trappings, because most of it “designed” to trap you. This is the closest I came to, until then, to understanding what it meant. 

Since taste buds are one of the media that pull you into the world of lustful consumption, it was liberation I hadn’t experienced before. Whenever someone asks me how I could live without such delicious, scrumptious, decadent things to eat, I always tell them that it’s a prison that we’re born in. Once we break free from this prison, we step into a world that we never knew existed.

• Love

I detest “animal lovers” whose “animal love” begins and ends at street dogs or pets in general. If it’s really love, why does it stop at those you can see? If love is really universal, why does it not extend to those you have never seen or heard and never will? Powerful love that transcends all boundaries of time, space, gender, age, color, and species and touches all – those you can see and those you don’t and never will. Popular Indian culture, especially the Indian family structure and Bollywood movies present a picture of love that is based on consumption, possession and having a person you desire in your life at all costs. Veganism can’t help but rejecting this notion of love. What kind of love wants to possess or own? The answer: It’s not love. It’s just ego; ego that says, “I possess, therefore I am”. 

I love you that’s why I don’t want anything from you is what the essence of veganism is. 

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Advice for those interested in adopting a vegan lifestyle

The one advice I always give, whenever asked for, to people who want to switch to a vegan lifestyle is that it is not a step-by-step process. It’s an abrupt, sharp, quick, overnight change. Even though this goes against every single theory purported by psychologists about changing old habits (Something to do with transition taking 21 days), I have noticed, in one hundred percent of the cases, that people who switched to veganism and successfully sustained it, are the people who made the change suddenly owing to some suddenly realization, similar in essence to the one I had back in 2006, with the laptop on my tummy and knees while lying in bed, watching the fur farm video being streamed from the other side of the internet.

Also, do not seek alternates. There would be no milk anymore, there would be no yogurt and no vegan ghee or vegan cheese. Let the void be and let the universe fill it, which it will. I promise.

We are all stronger that we think we are and we can do with a lot less than we have been trained to believe. If anything, believe in love. As Carl Sagan said in the movie “Contact”, “In the immensity of space and the eternity of time, the only thing that makes loneliness lot more bearable is Love.”

From my heart to yours: Peace, Love and vegan Pride.

• Gaurav Prakash (proud vegan soul)

The world is full of dualities. Right - wrong, left - right, positive - negative etc, same is with veganism. Vegans across the world swear by its benefits but non vegans disagree. Irrespective if what people say, you make your own choice! Contact our customer wellness managers on our toll-free number 1800-833-8747, visit us at www.transformhappily.com or reach us at transformhappily@gmail.com to know more about veganism. 

Let us transform you, happily!

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