Friday night I crashed your party, Saturday I said I’m
sorry, Sunday came and trashed me out again. The words to Billy Joel’s song ‘You
May Be Right’ were so appropriately subliminally tossed at me by my ‘ross omelette’ vendor two nights ago as
I ambled up to his stall. The poor man looked at me sympathetically and didn’t
even wait for me to order before putting up his hand and saying, “Sorry patrao. Beef ross na. Governmentan ban
kella.” (Sorry Chief. There is no beef gravy. The government has banned it.)
It turns out that steak across the world has various rates.
For instance, a filet mignon costs $56 at New York’s Old Homestead Steakhouse.
An average restaurant in the Iberian parts of Europe will charge you
approximately €25. In Tokyo, a sirloin or Kobe Beef can exceed $250. However,
we now have our own claim to fame: Mumbai, a place where the steak will cost
you five years in the slammer. Maharashtra’s beef eaters will now have to go
without as President Pranab Mukherjee has given his assent to the Maharashtra
Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, which, in lay man’s terms, indicates that
anyone found to be selling beef or in possession of it can be jailed for five
years and fined Rs 10,000.
Quite frankly, Mumbai’s issue is one that needs sorting out,
but it’s not my biggest beef (pun intended).What rankles in the face of this
kind of issue is the use of the term ‘hurting religious sentiment’. However, do
these sentiments not get hurt by the touristic community’s consumption of the
same? Do these sentiments get affected only by local consumption and not by our
myriad visitors from Europe, Russia, and the other parts of the world? Hence,
will it only be banned in Maharashtra with adverse effects on Goa? Best of all,
being one of the bigger exporters of beef in the world (India exports $4
billion of beef annually, almost all of it from buffalo, which makes up 20%
share of the global market), another question that arises is whether we will
ban this export or does the sentiment being hurt not extend there, considering
‘we’ aren’t the ones eating it?
Best of all, what I love about our democracy being trampled
upon is that beautiful thing called leather. We, as a culture, love it. We love
using it left, right and centre. From our belts, to our shoes, wallets and
bags, who can honestly say that they don’t own a piece of it? So I suppose one
must ask whether the criterion here is, “Beef
nahin khaunga magar woh Jimmy Choo acha dikhta hai.” (I won’t eat beef, but
that Jimmy Choo looks good.)
I don’t aim to get into a discussion revolving around
theology, but I am Catholic and the concept of eating beef is one that I have
grown up with and is (dare I say it) a part of my culture. Hence, being
catholic and a citizen of the country, do I not get to live to our ‘ideals’ of
being a ‘secular and democratic republic’? Am I not entitled to practice my
culture?
Then let us please not get into how the ban on beef is going
to affect the people working in the sector. Shame on you for assuming anything
other than the fact that poor old Rangappa was going to keep Daisy well fed and
watered until she strolled off into the sunset amidst a meadow of buttercups.
Who cares about the fact that farmers who are already battling poverty will now
be forced to feed the cattle till it dies of natural causes? Tsk. For shame!
So while it all began with the ban on eating what one pleased
in Maharashtra, it then went to banning ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, a movie that
flew under the Indian radar (until it was banned)before coming down to banning
‘India’s Daughter’, the BBC documentary about the December 16 Nirbhaya rape
case. This country has long since claimed to be the world’s largest democracy.
However, one can’t help but wonder whether that democracy applies only to the
right to choose our electoral candidate? At least let me have some preferred
food for thought in the process. On that note, I’m going to take a breather,
lean across the table and ask my dinner companion how they would like their steak – rare, medium, well done or banned?
