One torpid rain-free September afternoon in Shivajinagar, Ramu and Somu, the lovable rogues, incorrigible trouble makers, enfants terribles, direct descendants of Machiavelli himself, were loitering about the dusty, unpaved, bovine, sylvan by-lanes of the ramshackle town tucked away deep in the heart of the Indian hinterland, safely shielded from the blessings and curses of modern civilizational influences that its larger counterparts were bedeviled with. They had sneaked out of the loathsome Chitre Sir’s much reviled and derided drawing class.
V.K. Chitre was art teacher at VJHS (Veermata Jijabai High School, named after the beloved Maratha prince Shivaji’s mother, God bless her soul). Chitre Sir was an exceedingly odd choice for teacher, let alone art teacher. He seemed more suited for the role of a bouncer or weightlifter, or a sadistic hangman according to students at the wrong end of his animal fury. He resembled an oversized Gorilla with slightly less body hair, tall, dusky complexion, handlebar mustache (Harley Davidson more than bicycle), rippling, exploding muscles of extraordinary volume and power, terminating in ominously thick fingers. Those hapless students whose pitiable lot it had been to upset him in one unforeseeable way or the other, swore that those fingers were made of material comparable in strength to reinforced steel and in weight to rusted iron. Their cheeks, permanently deformed from violent contact with the aforementioned objects at hypersonic speeds were a fossil record of the gruesome events. Indeed, it was no secret that even the school principal, SMS Namboodiripad, was terrified of Chitre’s towering physical presence, not unsurprising given his own pusillanimous temperament and featherweight frame that crows frequently mistook for a scarecrow, beating a hasty retreat time and again to his bewilderment.
In a Dickensian twist, however, Namboodiripad was a hardcore non-vegetarian, responsible for introducing meat as a daily staple on the VJHS cafeteria menu. On the other hand, Chitre was a pure vegetarian, and since he suffered from a lactose allergy, was in fact a vegan. He hadn’t tasted a milligram of meat in his whole sadistic life. How such a pacific diet had given rise to such a mountain of muscle and such a vitriolic temperament was one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. Ramu and Somu had been the far from immovable objects meeting this irresistible force on a couple of occasions each, and the perfect symmetry of their sunken cheeks revealed a couple of Chitre’s curious character traits. A good measure of ambidextrousness allied with a grudging generosity of spirit. Indeed no student had ever to date been the recipient of consecutive thrashings on the same tender cheek. It was this oxymoronic nature of Chitre’s character that had piqued Ramu’s curiosity. The gears in Ramu’s superbly capable cranial machinery were slowly turning.
October 2nd, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, celebrated worldwide as International Day of Non-Violence, was but a few days away. As was customary across the length and breadth of India, this was the day for paying lip service to the great Mahatma’s ideals and teachings. From the most pompous politicians to the lowliest street vendor, all geared up to extract maximum mileage from this annual event for their own reasons which were seldom anything but mercenary in nature. VJHS was no exception. Principal Namboodiripad had organized a weighty program, consisting of pompous speeches, Gandhian songs, followed by more speeches, the usual annual song and dance with no relevance to the core ideals the Mahatma preached, lived and breathed. Ramu and Somu had been unwittingly and unwillingly roped into this charade to present a speech on Ahimsa and it’s relevance to modern times.
Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word meaning non-injury, or as it is more widely known, nonviolence. What is perhaps not as widely known is that this umbrella of benevolence extends not just to human life, but to all forms of life, including animals. Jainism takes a rather stringent view of Ahimsa, extending it to even insects and invisible germs. But how can one live without killing a single life form? One bacteria, one rice or wheat stalk, one potato root? Indeed, this is utterly impossible. The Jains, bless their souls, try valiantly, but for all their exertions, cannot in all honesty claim to have not harmed a single living thing on any given day, let alone over a lifetime. The best we can do is to minimize the damage, to avoid causing harm to the greatest extent humanly possible. Prevention of entirely preventable harm such as slaughtering a cow or a goat or a chicken, or pulling out a plant from it’s roots is what Ahimsa seeks to cultivate.
This was all well and good in principle. However, one didn’t have to travel far to witness the corruption of the ideal. Lamentably, it began within the less than hallowed precints of VJHS itself, and took on a multitude of forms. Of course violence was perpetrated daily by the likes of Chitre. Yet this was a far lesser evil. The more pernicious transgression took place in the school cafeteria in the form of the serving of meat on the menu. It was customary in Bollywood films that depicted appallingly reckless violence against animals, to carry a quaint disclaimer that no animals were harmed in the making of said film. This sordid disclaimer could certainly not be applied to the VJHS cafeteria menu.
Against this backdrop, Ahimsa was a sad joke to all but the unfortunate animals on the day’s menu. The last thing Ramu wanted to do though, was deliver a sermon on vegetarianism. Yet, something had to be done to short circuit the blatant hypocrisy of a speech on Ahimsa being followed by a carnal feast.
Ramu’s neurons were buzzing like the local neighborhood transformer after a savage blast of monsoonal fury, sparking with millions of ideas enroute to a feasible solution. Somu’s neurons, meanwhile, were in a state of transcendental (moronic if Ramu’s secret thoughts were to be tapped into) bliss, entirely in the present moment, enjoying the stillness of the languid afternoon air and contemplating precisely nothing of import. “The dreamers and the doers”, ran the opening chapter’s headline in a Time Life hardcover edition on Space, one of the most prized possessions in Ramu’s grandfather’s extensive personal library. It captured the essence of Ramu Somu’s unique partnership.
Ramu was very much the visionary dreaming up outlandish ideas and crackpot schemes like a Wall Street broker on steroids, none of which would have seen the light of day were it not for Somu’s extraordinary networking and execution skills. Rumor had it that Somu had managed to get a correspondence going with the Oval office by posing as the Shiekh of Arabistan seeking to strike an oil deal and obtained a couple of autographed photos of the President himself before they figured out that they had been duped, upon which they let sleeping dogs lie for fear of international humiliation.
Chitre was the queen in Ramu’s strategic chessboard. Chitre’s disdain of meat and meat eaters was legion. Legend had it that he would simply take his tiffin carrier and move to another table in a furious huff when a naive newcomer happened to be audacious enough to sit at his table with a non-vegetarian meal. Equally well-known was his love of body building and to top things off, he had strong narcissistic tendencies.
The local Hanuman Gym’s proprietor, Bajrangi Lal, was an old acquaintance of Somu’s from Somu’s own nascent body building attempts. One look at Somu’s stick figure frame was enough to realize that those attempts didn’t make it too far. Somu had a monstrous social network though, against which Facebook looked like a child’s phone diary. Through his network, he had managed to increase Bajrangi’s clientele five-fold, which meant that Hanuman Gym had exactly 20 clients. Not earth-shattering, but sufficient for Bajrangi to break even and even start registering a modest profit. Bajrangi was from that day indebted to Somu and promised him a blank cheque favor he could redeem at any time, an offer he would come to later regret.
The time had now arrived for Somu to redeem the favor in full. In this manner, Bajrangi grudgingly ended up sponsoring a free annual membership pass for Chitre. To avail of this munificent offer, all Chitre had to do was throw his mountainous weight behind Ramu Somu and their plan to take meat off the VJHS cafeteria. From Chitre’s viewpoint, although he hated that idiom, two birds were being cleanly slaughtered with one stone. He caved in like a spineless subcontinental top-order on a green wicket. Moreover, he also agreed to bully, browbeat and intimidate the other teaching and catering staff into supporting the plan, which was easier done than said, given the vast gulf in physical volumes and temperament between Chitre and the rest.
On October 2nd, Ramu walked up to the podium to deliver his magnum opus on Ahimsa. His speech was brief and eloquent, modeled on Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg address, coincidentally also a slavery-ending speech. “Ahimsa is as relevant, if not more to modern society as it was during the halcyon days of the freedom struggle. The freedom struggle freed humans from slavery of the British. But animals continue to be indentured to this day. Their entire lives are spent in slavery, hardship, pain and torture, culminating not in a bed of roses, but in a guillotine. How can mankind call itself civilized if it actively promotes animal slavery to this day? I take great pleasure in announcing that from this day, nay this moment, VJHS cafeteria will no longer serve meat. I applaud honorable Principal Namboodiripad for this bold, forward-thinking, visionary, statesmanlike move. I thank respected Chitre Sir and the entire teaching and catering staff for their support in implementing this decision. Thank You. Jai Hind.”
Ear-splitting applause. Whistles. Hoots. Ramu floated back to his seat on cloud nine. As for Namboodiripad - confusion, nervous gulps, cold sweat beads. He contemplated asserting his authority and calling Ramu’s bluff for a fraction of a nanosecond. However, Chitre’s ferocious, muscular, browbeating presence towering over his skeletal frame put to rest all such vainglorious pretensions. A secondary consideration was the beating his admittedly none too great image would take were he to go against the overwhelming majority opinion. Finally, he decided to make the best of an ugly situation and rose from his chair to acknowledge the wild cheers, before morosely sinking back into it, visions of hot butter chicken for lunch dissolving in a mixture of bewilderment and impotent rage.
Chitre eventually took the stage to deliver the closing notes, since Namboodiripad reported feeling mildly indisposed. He applauded Ramu’s pathbreaking address, as well as Namboodiripad’s historic decision, and went on to reveal that meat was not the only exclusion from the menu. Diary had been added to the list as well! Not only diary, but also all fried foods had been excluded as well in the interests of promoting a healthy lifestyle for pupils! Confusion, nervous gulps, cold sweat beads formed on Ramu Somu’s foreheads while their stomachs growled wildly in anticipation. Eager visions of freshly fried samosas and hot tea following the dreary speeches vanished in mournful smoke.