WHAT STRONG MEANS
“The world's strongest animals are plant eaters…
Gorillas, Buffaloes, Elephants and me.”
Two days ago, our son had invited my wife, me and one of his friends for
a dinner at a nice restaurant. The particular restaurant served some of the
most delicious kebabs and biryani (Non-veg). So, while I settled for kebabs and
biryani, my son and his friend settled for their usual veg fare. Our son has,
always, been a vegetarian… something unusual for Catholic parents like us! But,
despite my high-voltage daily ‘motivation and enlightenment’, and despite my
doctors’ advice to cut down on animal proteins (following my major surgeries
last year), I have not been able to stay off the meat menu. My wife, on the
other hand, is not as weak as I am, when it comes to this temptation!
I remember a scene in
Richard Attenborough’s film, ‘Gandhi’. In his ashram, during the course of the
interview, when the lady reporter of ‘LIFE’ magazine asks him, if it was easy for him
to follow celibacy, the Mahatma, the famous celibate, says with all his
innocence and humility, “Four times I tried (made vows) and failed!”
The vow to be
vegetarian, for weak souls like me, can be as complicated as the vow to be a celibate
for the Mahatma! Trust me, I have tried to be a vegetarian many times before,
and failed!
Rather, ‘not
succeeded, yet’... There is still hope!
Yesterday, when my wife was at a public-sector bank, she received a call
from our son. “Mom, I want you and dad to watch today a very important
documentary on Netflix,” he told firmly. Being already bugged by the sloppy
work by the bank staff, she cut short the discussion, “Now, that’s neither
important nor urgent at this time, Son.” But she added, “Please tell this to
dad!”
Which means, “Your
father needs it more than anybody else on earth!”
What was the
documentary which our son wanted his parents to watch? What was so ‘important’
about it?
Yes, in Stephen Covey’s
famous quadrants of priorities, he would have classified the lessons from this
documentary in the Quadrant 2 – ‘Important but not urgent’!
At night, my wife and
I watched this 80-minutes-long documentary – ‘THE GAME CHANGERS’ on Netflix
(Produced by James Cameron), and realized why our son was so restless to evangelize
its gospel…
“Gerry saab, our problem is not lack of ‘knowledge’,”
my friend Manjeet would put it in his own way, “our problem is lack of ‘implementation’!”
How true that is!
Today, the world – including some of the best athletes and celebrities – is
turning vegan. Now, many of us had not even heard this term till the other day…
We knew something called ‘Vegetarianism’… No, being a ‘Vegan’ is much more
refined than that, Sir!
The best ones to enlighten
us on this are many of today’s young health-conscious men and women, who take
pride in calling themselves - ‘Built by Plants’!
That’s so nice, so
humbling even for parents like us!
After I was introduced
to James Wilks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrik Baboumian and others in the
documentary - ‘The Game Changers’, I watched some more videos related to this
subject. I was particularly impressed by the story of Patrik Baboumian, who is
one of the worlds’ strongest men and with the kindest hearts towards animals.
When he speaks about the ‘contradiction’ – that, most of us are kind-hearted to
animals and birds, but we shut our hearts while eating meat!
Well, that
double-standard and hypocrisy of ours, when it comes to our compassion towards
animals, are what the documentary - ‘The Game Changers’ and stories of people
like James Wilks and Patrik Baboumian hope to bust… Yes, besides the old myth,
that, the strongest men eat meat!
I strongly urge you,
like our son did with us, to watch this documentary on Netflix - ‘The Game
Changers’ and know more about famous vegans like Patrik Baboumian, James Wilks
and our own Virat Kohli…
Take heart: It’s okay
even if you try and fail… Just remember what Mahatma confessed about his struggle
to become a celibate!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: vegnews.com
Videos: Minus The Gym
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