Just in time for All Hallows Eve, here’s the story of an unnaturally thin Indian man who makes a living playing a ghost (via Boing Boing). He weighs just 52 pounds — if there’s an Adnan Sami in this world, there must be a Gopal Haldar:
Measuring a mere 1.21 meters (four feet) and weighing a slight 24 kilograms (52 pound), Haldar — now near to retirement age — says he has been malnourished all his life… He says it takes him only 10 to 15 minutes to do his makeup and transform his emaciated self into a ghost-like creature — mainly by painting his sunken face, protruding ribs and skeletal limbs with soot…A doctor at a local government-run hospital said Haldar had likely suffered acute malnutrition as a child which had resulted in hormonal imbalances. [Link]
The man from the psychedelic jungles of the Sundarbans carries on a proud carnie tradition with his herbivorous habits:
He mainly does his shows during the festive seasons and earns 40 to 50 rupees (about a dollar) a time, said his wife Malati, adding resignedly, “But he is addicted to smoking hemp and spends all his money on this habit.” Lighting up a hemp cigarette in front of his wife, Haldar acknowledged his love of the herb. [Link]
Emaciated, smeared in ashes and tolerant of chemical penances — is he a spook, or is he a Shaivite sadhu?
LOL! He love to smoke the herb. But he get no munchies?
Just in time for Halloween…
‘It’s Friday, you ain’t got shit to do… I’m gonna get you high!’
He hardly needs the make-up.
India consciously walked away from its only major source of protein centuries ago, declaring cows holy. Basically they legislated asceticism.
I acknowledge the spiritual aspect of that, but I prefer to pray on a full stomach (except for Yom Kippur).
I guess you’ve never heard of dal, mattar, wheat, oats, rice, semolina, coconut, pista, eggs or milk.
Jeremy = pwned
Jeremy, very few Indians are strict vegetarians. Vegetarianism tends to be an upper-caste thing, and even then there are exceptions: Bengali Brahmins eat fish, for example.
Jeremy writes: >>India consciously walked away from its only major source of protein centuries ago
Looks like you are a Monoproteinist! However, we heathen Hindus are Polyproteinists!!
M. Nam
Chick peas, eggs and milk may well be a diet for spiritual insight, but every decision has a price. My point was that walking away from meat protein certainly did.
Please note I acknowledged the spiritual side of Hindu asceticism. Moreover, in the post-industrial world being formed, where imperial land grabbing is no longer at a premium, India, indeed a largely Hindu, vegetarian(ish) India, looks to be well placed.
But you can also see why such a country would lose, or choose for spiritual reasons not to compete, in the last rather aggressive round of world history.
Jeremy,
Both egg and dairy proteins are equally complete proteins, in that they contain the same 9 essential amino acids which “meat proteins” do. They are ALL considered to be complete proteins.
Even incomplete proteins such at legumes, nuts, seeds and grains can be combined with each other to make complete proteins and provide the full compliment of all 9 essential amino acids.
Not all brown folks are vegetarian for spiritual reasons. Some just don’t like it. Some just prefer their veggies. Nutritionally, I don’t get your point, unless you’re just trying to rile up the Sacred Cow topic.
You’re spreading a lie based on ill-informed cultural presumption. Vegetarian athletes:
And:
The not-enough-protein idea died out with the cavemen, when sustenance agriculture was replaced by proper farming.
Re: non-athletes, a vegetarian diet is much cheaper and less resource-intensive.
Given the thoroughly documented health benefits of a veg diet (look at the discussion leading up to the last USDA food pyramid revision, subverted in the end as always by the meat and dairy lobbies), a warrior nation looking for peak performance would be distinctly vegetarian.
“India, indeed a largely Hindu, vegetarian(ish) India…”
Jeremy: a largely Hindu India is not a vegetarian(ish) India. Most Hindus are NON-vegetarians (although most will not eat beef). Consumption of chicken and goat meat is hardly uncommon in India, from South to North. Certain communities (Dalits for one; some in Kerala for another) will even consume beef (though typically buffalo-meat). India’s vegetarianism is a huge misconception in the West, I think resulting from the fact that the profile of Indian immigrants has been more veg than Hindus in India as a whole (e.g. I remember reading somewhere that 60% of Indian immigrants to the USA were from Gujarat, where vegetarianism is far more widespread than in the country as a whole).
Umair, I certainly appreciate your informative comment. I would be interested to know how long those sources of meat protein have been available and widely used in India.
I wasn’t trying to start a nutritional debate, though the points I’ve read about alternative protein sources are relevant. My point is that a civilization walked away from a (whoops, you all hate the word major) from a significant available source of protein. I pointed out this simple fact and suggested cultural and spiritual reasons for this.
In return, from some posters, a veiled accusation of anti-Indian or anti-Hindu prejudice. Gotcha bloggism.
The introduction of beans into medieval Europe revolutionized diet and actually physically energized its peoples, whose diet was imbalanced at the time. (Not saying all vegetarianism is unbalanced, in fact I’m saying excessive meat eating was unbalanced).
Just thought I was making a point about similar evolution of diet and its effects in India.
“I would be interested to know how long those sources of meat protein have been available and widely used in India”
These sources have been available since forever, in the sense that ancient texts like the Vedas reference meat-eating, and historians are in agreement that meat-eating is not a recent innovation in India. For a somewhat qualified take, see this piece.
Jeremy,
I think your leap from cow-holiness to “legislating asceticism” struck some of us as cocky. What does not eating beef have anything to be a sanyasi(ascetic)? Have non-beef eaters have given up all other worldly pleasures like chicken, fruit, sex, movies, blogging-with-complete-strangers etc?
There is a common misconception that people who don’t eat meat are necessarily weaker than those who do, because they lack protien in their diet. I’ve dealt with this topic in The case for Vegetarianism.
M. Nam
“walking away from a significant source of protein” … kind of like we do in the US by refusing to eat dogs, cats or horses.
Just because something is a good nutritional source doesn’t necessarily make it an absolute must-eat when there are many other sources of the same nutrients around.
Well, ok, I can see how the phrase “legislating asceticism” might come off as cocky. Again, since this blog appears well informed on the subject, I would be interested in knowing how the prohibition of beef came about – was it top down, as the term legislating may have suggested, or bottom up. It may not matter as much now that it is widely followed.
Still, I find theories about the prohbition of pork and shellfish in my Jewish tradition irresistable. Tor me the odd-on favorite is trichinosis formed under an often blistering sun. The elevation of the Torah perpetuated the prohibition even in more favorable climates. My family anguishes over bacon-eating decisions and their effect on our Jewish identity to this day.
Again, I was suggesting that the beef prohibition meant something, rather than nothing, and politely speculating on what that something might be.
India’s vegetarianism is a huge misconception in the West
Not sure exactly which misconceptions you refer to…surely the West that associates Indian food with chicken tikka masala cannot uniformly think that all Indians are vegetarian. At any rate, that the majority of Indians and Hindus are non-veg does nothing to weaken the statement that India remains vastly more vegetarian than any other country (or that it remains a “paradise for vegetarian food”, as Manas puts it).
SMR: don’t disagree with what you say here; my comment was responding to Jeremy’s notion that India had “turned its back on” or “walked away from” meat protein– it never has, as those comments suggest to me a claim of an abandonment in an absolute sense, and not just in the somewhat relative sense that you indicate (i.e. I wouldn’t disagree with a statement that “meat-eating is less of a focus of Indian cuisines than it is in other countries”).
PS: “India’s vegetarianism is a huge misconception in the West…” what I was thinking when I wrote that was “Hindus’ vegetarianism…” though I recognize that I did not write that…
Jeremy,
You sound like a person who does not harbour any disrespect for Hindus, but at the same time you seem ill-informed about Hinduism. I see you use terms like: legislating, prohibition… all of which have no meaning in the Hindu tradition.
Unlike Jewish/Islamic scriptures which prohibit eating of pork, there is no Hindu scripture that prohibits eating of beef. (Come to think of it – Hindu scriptures prohibit nothing.) There are no canons to be followed: Just suggestions and guidelines. The Hindu beef against beef came about sometime in the post-Vedic period, when agriculture took off in a big way in the Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation. The importance of cow/buffalo in agriculture needs no mention – even in contemporary India where only 3 out of 10 farmers have tractors. To make sure that one does not eat up the cow to fill one’s belly(like eating seeds today instead of planting them), perhaps the farmers/villagers came up with the idea to make the cow sacred. This concept was probably included in the Hindu canon by Brahmins a few centuries later. Eventually, this became practice. The State was not involved in this.
There are Hindus who eat beef. They are not formally excommunicated, because there is no such thing in Hinduism. However, they are not looked upon kindly either and they face social disgrace.
M. Nam
Just to clarify: Only Brahmins are explicitly prevented from eating beef.
M. Nam
Moornam, to your depiction of my I plead guilty.
I’d like to say I started reading sepiamutiny to learn more about South Asian culture but in fact I din’t notice for weeks that sepiamutiny was a Desi/South Asian blog. I thought it was just a blog with a particularly clued-in commentary culture. I finally looked up at the banner at one point and noticed its origin and focus.
I also appreciate your review of how the prohibition got started – likely more bottom up, to avoid eating the sower of the seed corn, so to speak, and then formalized under the Brahmins.
Anyway, glad you’re all around and available to be read.
Thats a great point Andrea !!!
I am not piling on Jeremy by this, as I learned from the entire exchange.I have always wondered about the special place dogs have here in the US.
I know of a case when the state prosecuted a someone for killing of a dog, while the prosecutors must have ate an entire cow/pig (or whatever …some animal) during the process. So why is dog so important and not the cow/buffalo??
Poor Malati…
Dudes, interesting debate about veggie-ism, but Jeremy only mentioned that we walked away from beef and you took it as meat in general. What about chicken, pork, lamb and fish?! Proteinlicious.
MoorNam, well made points. It’s key to emphasise that Hinduism simply makes suggestions, not hard and fast rules. My family has always eaten beef (always means for several generations) and we’re not looked down upon.
I think.
Just to veer off course, I will offer a defense of not killing dogs, or specifically tamed animals.
I think we have a different and higher obligation toward animals that have been tamed since, after all, we tamed them. It probably took centuries for wolves to shuffle closer and closer to human campfires, and centuries more for a kind of managed selection to change their appearance and even their nature, from enemy to, I suppose, hunting assistant.
We invited them to trust us and made them our dependents. As a result (regardless of how tasty they may be) they are under our protection.
The moral argument here doesn’t really hang together, though. Such as cows, chickens and pigs? How about the morality of raising animals specifically to kill them, and in painful ways?
Fact is, most people’s attitude towards animals is pretty utilitarian.
Also noteworthy is the fact that, vegetarianism in India is also due to the effect of Jainism which is more popular in Gujarat and Rajasthan but can be found all over India. Infact it has existed one time or other all the way from Afghanistan to Nepal to East India. Ahimsa (non-violence) is a pillar belief of Jainism.
hmm….70% of vegatarians in the world are in india!!
9 · Jeremy said
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blockquote>Chick peas, eggs and milk may well be a diet for spiritual insight, but every decision has a price. My point was that walking away from meat protein certainly did.
Only cow is banned. BTW IN WEST BENGAL AND KERALA COW MEAT IS ALLOWED. In the rest of India, other meats are allowed so please keep your theory to yourself.
Also why is there only one man like this?