Are vegetarians having the last laugh?

Pavan Kapoor, Contributor, Jakarta

"Eat what tonight, madam?" my house cook asked politely as he brought in my morning brew.

It was Wednesday and he was supposed to thaw the chicken he buys on his weekly Sunday market trips.

"Um...," I began creatively, only to have each menu idea slam against a brick wall, stagger and pass out in a bed of insipid vegetables, calorie-pregnant breads and frugal soups.

The chicken had the flu, the beef housed the mad cow and the fish -- well it wasn't fishy but a limp option nevertheless.

I looked up in panic.

"Oh my goodness, there is nothing to eat!"

For a family of hard-core nonvegetarians, this spelled a lot of trouble.

After finally sending the dazed man out with a menu of cheese pizzas and tomato soup, I wondered if a world without nonvegetarian foods was possible. There has always been a silent war between the nonvegetarians and vegetarians of this world, with each expounding on the goodness of their eating habits. Without realizing it, however, we had all been unwittingly turned into a generation of pure carnivores.

Supermarket shelves laden down with nonvegetarian items have come to be the predominant food source in our lives. Even walking along the national and international food courts, it is hard to find a food with no chicken or beef content.

The enforced vegetarianism was what was on everyone's mind at the hen gathering that day.

"Can you imagine a burger without the meat," said one.

"A barbecue without the steaks"

"And naan without the tandoori chicken."

And then one raised her glass like a pastor raising his hand to the heavens.

"Vegetables are purific -- you don't kill something to fill your belly."

But then she has been a pure vegetarian for the last five years of her life.

"This is perhaps the creator's message," continued my vegetarian friend with the pious affectation. "A message for humans to become vegetarians."

"I know a lot of confirmed nonvegetarians would opt for the world to come to an end rather than live a life of vegetarianism," said another indignantly.

"The creator designed man to be a carnivore," someone added. "This is no message from above, it's just one of those biochemical virus experiments gone haywire."

And the verbal war between vegetarianism and nonvegetarianism went on for the better part of the hour. We ended it with a dramatic "Amen", before polishing off the remaining contents of our glasses and returning to our lives of planning more menus to excite the shriveled taste buds of our families.

Perhaps like other waves of news-breaking stories, the chicken flu would also wash off the shores of media land. So, when my cook asks again "Eat what tonight, madam?", I will be able to effortlessly spin off recipes with meats as main courses.

Then again, what if this story is here to stay? Do the vegetarians get to have the last laugh after all?