Dear Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

You say, “Your comment doesn't make any sense!”

I made that comment only because it made sense to me in two different ways. Let me try to explain.

When you try to sell an idea to someone, your chances of selling are better if you answer a question, the acronym of which is WIIFM. It means “What’s in it For Me?” So, the slogan as modified by me, attempts to answer that question for the reader. It is contended that vegetarian food is easy on you So, when you “Go Veg” you are being kind to yourself first!

At another level I am trying to remind the reader that the reader himself is an animal too. The first comment on the same post correctly but cryptically says, “One should see that the differences between us are not of kind but of degree”

Then you say “It is a 'slogan' and you cannot have a slogan like the one you have written....” I cannot really reply to this one as I find that it is a decent enough slogan. But perhaps we are in the sphere of personal opinion and individual taste and hence perhaps we should leave it alone.

Then you say, “Of course, who is not kind to oneself?” Well, if you look around you will find many and in this case meat eaters!! At least that is what is implied by it.

Then you say parenthetically, “(except someone like you who torture himself/herself trying to find 'mistakes'(!) in some totally trivial matters such as the one that you have posted....” In this case you are really mistaken, let me assure you. I was having great fun while doing it. I was NOT trying to find a mistake. Actually the slogan is good and correct. I was only playing, for pleasure, let me assure you, with words. Vegetarianism is not a trivial matter, at least for the animal that is slaughtered and consumed. It is. quite literally, a matter of life and death for it! Don’t you think so?

You say “It appears that you have a whole lot of free time and not much to ponder in life....”

You are at your “wrongest” here.

As a family man, I ride a bike to run errands required to be run to run a family. How does one occupy one’s mind at such times? It is at such times that these interesting snippets catch my eye and my mind processes it for fun. I hope that it amuses some others too and distracts them from the cares of the world but alas, sometimes it irritates someone.

You seem to be an angry (sure) young (?) person. I have a hunch that you reacted like this to one of my earlier posts too. In any case, anger, contempt, jealousy, hate are emotions that hurt the source more than the target. I hope, you learn to control this (and other such emotions) for your own good, happy and long life. I wish you the best.

You may skip the following part as it is only the result of “stock taking”, triggered by your comment. I ran through what I do and have done in my 54 eventful, rollicking years of my life and put them together. In spite of all this I do have some spare time and waste it on watching TV! You may feel I am bragging. Perish the thought! I know of a guy who made a list of 124 things he wanted to do and did all of them, I know a guy who knows 8 or so European languages well enough to professionally do translations. Each of those is a short cut to an inferiority complex. No, I do not brag.

I work 9 hrs in an office, commute to work - about 1:45 Hrs in toto, during which time I read German articles, mostly Sci + Tech, in the process I have taught myself German Language, I meditate (TM), I play the Veena (Carnatic Classical), I sketch (during my first cuppa coffee), I also prepare my own breakfast with bread and oats, iron my own clothes, write mails to friends, sometimes chat and sleep for eight hours too! That is a normal day. Then on abnormal days, I do Su Do Ku, the Hindu Crossword, paint, photograph, blog (and bug some unintentionally)

In the past I have translated two books, (one is likely to see the light of day in December), ran a half marathon after about a year of training, acted in two plays in Kannada - both major roles - one as Basavanna in Karnad’s “Tale Danda”, have painted in oils, (sketching, oils, water colours and German, all self-taught, for all practical purposes), I have learnt to read Bangla, Tamizh and Malayalam and promptly forgotten the last one, I have sung in a group and given a performance, participated in quizzes and debates and lecture competitions and impromptu speech competitions and won prizes too, edited an in-house magazine of a factory where I worked, written poetry, translated poetry of Kaifi Azmi (on my blog), cycled from Mysore to Bangalore (long ago) read many books (from absolute trash including M&B to Shakespeare), I am a BE and an M Tech, Designed a couple of award winning power electronic equipment. . . . .,

I am unhappy, when I have to time to be so, that I have not done mountain/rock climbing, pottery, clay modelling, sculpting, trekking. fly an aircraft, run a company, driven an auto for a day picking fares in Bangalore, driven a bus, a truck, run a restaurant, sail, walked down from Talakaveri to the estuary of Kaveri, swum the English channel (Don’t laugh, why be stingy in dreaming?), travel by the Chunnel, act in a movie. . .,

I will do some of them, sooner or later.