Just Absurd: like feeding the pigs tablescraps under a cloche

September 19, 2013

 

I’ve read a fair share of farmyard stories, both as a child and as a parent. As a young child exploring the world through books, I loved farmyard stories the most of all – the farmer, the animals, their young ones, the green green grass, and the unhurried pace of life depicted in each story. I suppose the place where these stories were set and the speed at which they were told transported me to a world far away – a world so different from mine – a world where nothing was imposed on kids.

As a school kid burdened with homework (and other such deadly things like learning to sing in a chorus, tidy up my room, and cut & color along dotted lines), I envied the animals for not having to wake up early in the morning, pack a truckload of books in a satchel and sit for hours in dull and cramped classrooms. I loved the hog pen where baby piglet was born.

But at that age, little did I know that the chicken soup that I was fed to soothe my cold, came from the same speckled hen that I so adored – the same speckled hen who taught her sunny yellow chicks the value of community and how to stay safe.

Somewhere between childhood and teenagehood, all of us eventually do figure this out. But by the time we realize that the vital ingredient in Boti Kabab or Shepherd’s Pie is, in fact, a lamb – one similar to the little lamb Mary had, and identical to the one you read about in Farmer Smith’s barnyard story, our eating habits are set and reinforced by family food patterns, Sunday brunches, and similar traditions.

I remember protesting the meat dishes that were doled out to me. I remember asking my folks if they didn’t ‘feel’ for these animals. I remember going on a silent hunger strike every Sunday brunch (that my mum would have toiled to bring to the table), and I remember distinctly, the adults in the extended family chiding me for being rebellious. They lectured me on the food chain and food cycle, and they told me (and each other) two more things,
1. It is just a passing phase, and
2. ‘that’s how things are, and that’s how we are made’ (meaning the Almighty)

And shamefully enough, I made point one come true. As a 15-year-old, training for bi-annual rowing regattas, I decided I ‘needed’ protein power, and I sought that power from the animal kingdom. Frankly, I must have razed a few Framer Smith barns to feed my voracious hunger and prove a point about my physical fitness. Also, by then, sweet thoughts of baby lamb and loving mother hens were replaced with more young adult thoughts, pursuits, and priorities.
And I said to myself (with a shrug): ‘that’s how things are.’

And that’s really just how things are: Absurd
As absurd as drooling over a calf on television while chewing BiFi, as absurd as coochie cooing with your pet goldfish while frying Mackerel fillets, as absurd as wearing sunglasses at night, as absurd as the picture above – like feeding the pigs table scraps under a cloche.
When I mull over this picture, I am confronted with more of this absurdity.

Why we love to watch Animal Planet, visit zoos, pet animals, queue up to hand feed animals and then go home and eat ham, bacon, or chicken curry still puzzles me. Why we line up our kids in front of the Yorkshire piglets to get a picture that would make us go ‘aaaawww….soooo….cute’ and then go home and put a suckling pig on the spit roast, puzzles me even more. It is just how things are, we tell ourselves.

Why we love some animals so much and kill some others after caring for them is still a mystery to me. We mourn the demise of our pet dog for years and yet don’t feel a thing when we see the bloody entrails of a cow in the market. We buy make-believe homes and fancy toys to entertain a pet hamster, and we fuss over it when it doesn’t eat fresh fodder, but we don’t bat an eyelid when we see chickens cramped in coops and slaughtered. We find working with horses therapeutic, but we send the pigs to the butcher. We book farm stay vacation, hoping it would teach our kids to care for animals and live harmoniously with them – but, do we also tell the kids that this love is only till hunger strikes? I mean, would we tell them that the steak that Mummy just ate is, in fact, the hindquarters of the black and white cow the family petted?

And we don’t know why. Or maybe we do, but we are afraid to change.

Our unexamined behavior is wiping out billions from this planet and brutally too. But still, we prioritize our wants over the needs and lives of other living beings.

 

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