Ghost Story

I went with Shruti to buy chicken today for the pup. We think he is a pharaoh hound mix, in no small part because he gets treated like a little god-puppy come to earth.

It might be the first time that I have bought meat. For all of you vegetarians, let me warn you that the experience is rather bloody and personal. We went to the intersection of Boring Road and Boring Canal Road, where a couple of meat vendors have set up shop. The Hindi word for meat sounds like "ghost", I think because the Hindus believe that when you eat an animal its spirit will haunt you for eternity. There's a researcher at ADRI, the institute where our office is based, who's name is Dr. Ghosh. A few months ago I couldn't remember which was the word for meat and which was the researcher's name. So when I saw him, I said "Hi Dr. Ghosh…..t" I think I could have played it off if I hadn't drawn out the -t so much.

We were given instructions from the pharaoh's  mouthpiece to purchase two kilograms of chicken. A little chicken weighs about 1kg and a big chicken weighs about 2kg. When we first arrived, the meat vendor assumed we just wanted 1kg and so he grabbed a little chicken from the top crate. It squawked and flapped its wings and cast its panic-stricken eyes to and fro. But Shruti told him that we wanted 2kg, so the vendor threw the little one back into the crate and reached for a big chicken from the bottom crate. The little chicken breathed a sigh of relief, and it was now the big chicken's turn to helplessly beat its wings and squeak out an appeal to compassion. But then Shruti said no, we want two small chickens, I guess because they would have more meat on them then one big chicken. So the vendor threw the big chicken back into his crate and once again reached for the small chicken and for one of his brothers. To the chickens, the vendor must have been like a psychopathic killer, locking his victims in cages and feeding off of their fear of impending doom. It all seemed like a terribly cruel way to go about purchasing one's dinner. Then, very nonchalantly, the vendor slit each of their throats and tossed them into a metal can to bleed out. I don't think our data entry operators look that ambivalent when their typing numbers into the computers.

While we waited for the chickens to die a slow death in their metal graves, Shruti and I went to get some fruit juice. Fresh-squeeze juice from roadside vendors is one of the few ways we get our Vitamin C, and it's very tasty and cheap too, but you have to put up a real fight to prevent them from adding salt to your drink.