My Vegan Story: How did I turn to Vegan?

 My Story: How did I turn vegan?

Humanist Group Lecture Series by Vegan Sudesh

 

As a child, I was obsessed with nature and animals. I could observe them for hours. From my early age, I was drawn to everything unknown and inexplicable. It was interesting to know who I am, what I live for, what it is all about. In journey of my quest to check up on disparities, which have been traditionally persisted in social structure of India, made me interested to learn more and more about social science, I wanted to understand people, feel them, find out why they act this way, and not otherwise.

Interestingly, right from early childhood, it was things around, that made me fancier to read books, magazines and surfing around to understand the world in a better way.

I’m blessed with a beautiful place and tranquility, no matter wherever I spent a size-able time in my life so far. Our beautiful neighbourhood played an important role in the thirst for my learning i.e. ever ending. I had a great time in whole years of my schooling at hometown Patratu, an industrial township flanked by hills covered with lush green trees. It was setup in 1960s with Russian Collaboration. The beautiful Patratu valley has lovely S-curves, swooping corners & hills formed from rocks of late Jurassic Period valley very similar to Lonavala.

At a very tender age, I was well aware about many social things which are most searchable keywords at search engines in the age of internet. I was ranked in the list of best performing students, which is too without much hard work. While finishing my high schooling, my inclination towards social sciences was much to talk about in circle of our teachers and fellow students, reason being for the same was my tremendous understanding of subject matters, super memorising skills and record breaking scores in annual examinations.

 The glimpse of childhood, having my footprints in to Veganism a.k.a My Vegan Story.

Being born and bred in to a Hindu family setup, merely at the very tender age of my childhood, say it like when I was 4 years old, I had witnessed animal sacrifice rituals in neighbourhood and few famous temples. In a first incident, my parents took me at relative's place in order to attend an evening feast over an auspicious occasion. I saw there a priest along with entire clan were busy doing ritual with baby black goat, they thrown up him in newly constructed water well to test the level of negative energy present there. If he would have died while throwing him deep inside the water, they would have judged overall construction as an inauspicious. Fortunately, he neither injured nor ends up dying, so everyone was quite happy.

Next, ritual was about sacrificing the same baby goat, they fed him raw white rice while chanting some Sanskrit Mantras prescribed by Hindu Texts then one held his head, another pulled the trunk and the third one, a mid aged uncle with large moustache instantly slit his neck with an age old sword having sized at 4 feet approx. which were specially kept in many of homes as weapon for protection.

I was in an immense pain in the mind with wet eyes as I could not save his life; I was just another mute spectator. But, that day I decided to do something about it, with times I become more adamant on choice of plant based foods. Everything were become more catalytic in my mind while hearing in feast that many people were asking for pieces of dead body of that poor soul. Actually, they were brainwashed to follow this cruel tradition, which were used to satisfy their appetite for animal flesh.

After finishing my first honours degree in Economics in 2002, I failed by a very low margin to secure admission at Reserve Bank of India's backed research institute, IGIDR in Goregaon. Then it was a remarkable opportunity in my life to study & work abroad, as I was awarded with huge fund and title of Ford Fellow (I) for my commitment of social change after clearing 5 rigours stages of recruitment process in global talent hunt at the age of 22, I was second youngest among 23 socially committed fellow elects, representing India in list of 22 countries - spanning Asia, Africa, America, Russia, and the Middle East. Further, I invested my academic time for completing research degree in Economics from East Anglia, MBA (Dip) in Finance from London and career with specialization in to legal compliance in European Market and visiting to World Bank, HQ at Washington DC etc.

All of sudden entire childhood was a flashback for me while being home away when I discovered Veganism in 2004 during my university's research period, while spending time with fellow leaders from 18 different schools of my university in Students Union's parliamentary board meetings and seminars / events at three campus namely London School of Economics, Cambridge University and University of East Anglia. At that time the entry of Facebook at social media space provided platform to connect with large no. of fellow vegans across the world. It's was just another turning point for me switch to a plant based lifestyle. Owing to my past memory, I’ve had taken up this change very strongly including 'the global campaign to stop animal sacrifice'. I believe that being vegan isn’t just about a diet. It’s a social justice movement to end the commodified status of animals. It does not matter, wherever you stay or whichever faith you practice, you must not silently support to the murder of innocent animals.

To stay updated with my regular posts, recipes and online sessions on plant based lifestyle, go to my website: vegansudesh.com and/or follow me @vegansudesh at any of your favourite social media platforms.

Vegan Sudesh 

The Global Campaign to Stop Animal Sacrifice

facebook.com/stopaninalsacrifice

stopsacrifice.sudesh.org


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