Vegetarianism

Hi everyone, I'm back .... apologies for the long silence (hope you enjoyed less email traffic because of my non-blogging) .... as many of you know, I had moved from Dubai to Singapore early this year and was having a hectic time settling down and travelling on my new job ...

Singapore is a land of mixed cultures and there is no single identity or culture which you can call as Singaporean .... but some of the emerging trends are (a) marriages are reducing (if not late), (b) even if married, couples choose not to have kids, (c) vegetarians are a rare breed (except of course in little india) .... in fact there is better choice of (chinese/buddhist) vegetarian restaurants in some parts of china ... the only issue is that you should have a chinese-speaking friend with you to explain to the chef what you (do not) need .... but there are also some exclusive vegetarian restaurants where they serve only organically grown vegs.

The non-veg culture is percolating into the Indian families also and I heard one of my Indian colleague (jaati brahmana lady) telling ...." i feel left out when i go to a party since in do not eat non-veg, i even have to decline invitations.... hence i will force my son (who will be born soon) to eat whatever that moves so that he will be more succesful". .... what a pathetic definition of success !!

Except for some occasions (where I had to be content with fruits and salads and treat it as a precursor to fasting), my experience has been very positive in getting the maximum attention in company-sponsored lunches and dinners, since I get specially ordered/prepared veg dishes .... to the extent that my colleagues want to sit near me to get a taste of those special dishes...... and it happens very often on the plane (where special meals get served first) that the passesnger in the next seat looks over and asks the steward "... can i also have one of those dishes ?"

Pranams
Krishnan