Eat green, go green, spread green
World Vegetarian Day is observed on 1 October annually. It was founded in 1977 by the North American Vegetarian Society (NAVS) and in 1978 was endorsed by the International Vegetarian Union.
What a person eats is purely his or her personal choice as we often say in Hindi, Aap ruchi khana (eat to your heart's content). Yet, there are unwritten codes on dietary proclivities and preferences. India's ancient Sanskrit texts and books on medicines like Charak Samhita advocated and recommended a herbal diet, which is now called the Vegetarian diet. Here the point is not to eulogise vegetarian diet and demonise non-vegetarianism as food for demons! That's dietary extremism, which often becomes exasperatingly obvious when a vegan diet is aggressively advertised by certain organisations. The issue is different.
There's a famous saying in Hindi:
Jaisa anna, vaisa man. Quite right. Without sounding pejorative or condescending, food has raajsik, taamsik and saatvik effect/s on a person. A vegetarian diet has a calming effect on the senses. Moreover, it's healthy, digestible and clean. That's the reason, the healthconscious western world is turning towards vegetarianism.
The benefits are manifold. Daily exercise, enough water intake and a little veg diet is the worldwide medical mantra to be followed by fitness enthusiasts. This keeps one's body, mind and spirit in unison. And when it comes to the spirit, vegetarianism is indeed worth emulating. Not only in ancient India, even in faraway Greece, but the great gymno-sophists and philosophers were also vegetarians. So were all Sufis and mystics. Hakim Sanai, Nizami and Khaqani wrote verses in praise of the vegetarian diet and exhorted their disciples to resort to it for the cleansing of the soul and self. The most-loved Mughal, Dara Shikoh, was a complete vegetarian.
Now, even modern science is of the view that the human body is not meant for meat consumption. That apart, vegetables are easily available in several varieties. The eco-system also gets balanced when vegetarianism is promoted. Eat green, go green is a significant piece of advice that must be followed in toto for a balanced as well as salubrious existence. Let me sum up this subject with a rudimentary Hindi two-liner: Sabzi khao, sabzi ugao/Sabzi ki tarah hariyali failao (Eat vegetables, grow vegetables/Spread greenery like vegetables). Remember this.