People will talk about his different contribution to economy and philanthropy. However, my favorite is the story where he instructed his hotel employees to treat stray dogs well if they enter the premises. For a man of his wealth and power, to care about a stray dog truly speaks to his humble nature. RIP Sir, you were a crown jewel of the post independence India.
On one hand, stray dogs are a joy for many Indians. For many months the highlight of the day was going to a cafe at 10 pm in middle of work and throwing bones to the assembled dogs. On the other hand, they enter homes and kill babies, attack children and adults and carry rabies epidemics. Right thing to do is to prevent more strays from happening.
I worked for a company with people in India and they were available through like ten am eastern time. That’s about seven thirty pm which isn’t so bad but if there was any problem my manager would not hesitate to reach out to them even at three pm eastern.
Crunch and 12 hour days are pervasive at tech companies. Also people got meetings with clients or overlap with client timezones (like 2 pm to 11 pm). Hence the office complexes and eateries are still busy at 10 pm. Sorry the "day" was confusing.
It’s pretty typical for many Indians with any sync-up with the US (which is a lot) to work 12 hr day type schedules starting around 10-11am, with a long break in the middle for dinner/family time. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work eh?
Yes, of course and definitely I considered as I mention if he/she meant 2nd job, etc. Just the phrasing threw me off as it says 'day', then '10pm' and it's written as if it is a normal occurrence for the majority of the population (which would imply night shift/2nd shift is normal working times for the majority). Just wanted to get clarification from OP on exactly what was meant to satisfy my own curiosity.
> they enter homes and kill babies, attack children and adults and carry rabies epidemics
Are you talking about monkeys or dogs? I guess if you were talking about monkeys you forgot about how they raid the fridge and pretend to do laundry sometimes.
Not sure about entering houses, but a friend’s 5 year old just got bitten by a stray dog on the stomach during a month stay in India, she had to go through a course of rabies shots in the stomach.
Haha wtf that's not what I was going for at all. I was talking about hunting within the context of animal population control. Shelters perform animal population control with a few added steps. Not sure why everyone thought it was about eating animals when the whole danger of strays is because of a lack of animal population control.
I guess most people think of hunting as a recreational activity, followed by hunting for food. Hunting for population control is usually called culling. Regardless I didn't downvote your original comment. I just found it puzzling.
Additionally, animal shelters don't just sterilize animals, they find them new homes. A sterilization-only effort would be more like "hunting (culling) with extra steps"
The Indian subcontinent is so densely populated, very few areas can support hunting. It does happen in some rural areas. Sport hunting is not really a thing though.
Most Indians (statistically) are vegetarian, and essentially obligate vegetarian due to the population density (also enforced by religion), though ‘vegetarian’ can include eggs, fish, and sometimes chicken depending on the person, time, etc.
Indian Muslims are the notable exception (~13% of the population) and it does cause some serious friction at times - like riots.
A favorite rage bait topic is someone killing a cow. It gets people killed pretty often.
This one says 39% are ‘pure vegetarian’, with 81% ‘limiting meat’ (aka ‘mostly vegetarian’). If just a few percentage points shy of the total non-Muslim population, notably.
Which lines up with what I’m saying.
And looks like 84 killed in lynchings related to cow killings in this table [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_cow_vig...]. I didn’t say a lot died, just that it is a good rage bait topic when someone gets accused of it - and people do get killed over it.
No comment on the specifics of these issues, but I find the Wikipedia pages illuminating.
The “cow lynching” one has details about every incident. Whereas the “terrorist attacks” one simply has summaries.
The “cow lynching” is treated as far more important where each incident needs to be explained, but the much more numerous and impactful terrorist incidents are treated as less important.
Like Stalin said, 1 death is a tragedy, 1 million deaths is a statistic.
Also, in India a cow killing is both blasphemy/violence against a god figure, and an attack on an important source of renewable protein for the population.
Where terrorism is, uh. Business as usual.
I remember once when a political party in Bangalore bombed their own headquarters - but got caught doing it. Oops. Within a day or two, the scandal was out of the headlines to be replaced by yet another issue. Trash disposal problems, I think.
I’ve been vegetarian all my life because I’ve eaten plants with almost all my meals. One time I was a pure carnivore and eat a meat platter but most of the time I’ll manage at least one olive or something.
> though ‘vegetarian’ can include eggs, fish, and sometimes chicken depending on the person, time, etc.
What is the purpose of the word vegetarian if one uses it to mean consuming some animals but not others?
Vegan = no animals used to make food
Vegetarian = no animals consumed
Ovo lacto vegetarian = vegetarian that eats eggs and dairy (I guess additional clarifiers in case someone thinks vegetarian does not include eggs or dairy)
Pescatarian = fish + some flavor of vegetatian/vegan
For most people Vegetarian means no animal is killed - so eggs are ok.
In fact, some people claim egg is veg to convince people to consume eggs as protein source.
For proper clarity, some people use eggetarian for eggs allowed.
Seafood as veg, I guess is more a concept outside India, as consuming seafood is not seen as killing animals.
Depending on how the question was interpreted, Vegetarian might mean:
May eat outside, but will not cook non-veg at home
May eat non-veg only if veg option is not available.
Kind Advice for the meat eaters when lunch is brought in office:
-- Do not finish the only 2 vegetarian sandwiches because you wanted to see what the impossible burger tastes like.
-- Try not finish the cheese pizzas first and then touch the pepperonis later, if there are people who will come to the lunch table later
It is for this reason I always say Veg so that there is still some count available for people who need it.
Fun Facts:
Food packaging (and restaurant menus) in India show "signal" of green or red circle to indicate veg or not.
Airlines have a menu option of Hindu meal and Veg meal. Hindu meal can have chicken and omelet (or may not). Veg meal could be just salad and fruits. Many Indians pre-order Hindu and get confused when they get chicken. For me it is easier to pre-order Hindu and get cooked food with spices, and I can skip if it is chicken (or ask for veg).
[Jain meal is further restricted to veg grown above ground]
Veganism = no animals "used" to make food or whatever (soap, shoes, invivo testing...)
Many people here seems to make the confusion that veganism is about the food. It's not, it's about the animals.
> What is the purpose of the word vegetarian if one uses it to mean consuming some animals but not others?
Languages are not like mathematics, one word can convey many meaning and nothing is stone-defined (dictionaries are only an interpretation of a language). In the Indian context there's a BIG part of the population that have a diet that does not have a definition in the Official Oxford Dictionary.
> In the Indian context there's a BIG part of the population that have a diet that does not have a definition in the Official Oxford Dictionary.
How does omnivore not cover most people’s diets in India? (in the context of a discussion about populations of people that avoid eating animals)
It seems like Indians use vegetarian to describe frequency or proportion of one’s diet that is animals. Seems like there could be better terminology used to avoid confusion.
Omnivore word does cover post people diet and is indeed more accurate, but how is it useful to know that 99.9% of Indians are omnivore? « 40% avoid eating meat most of the time buy may consume it once a month » is more informative but not very practical to repeat each time someone ask your diet.
By the way its the same for veganism : most vegans have at least once washed their hand with animal glycerin in a public bathroom soap or used a non vegan cloth washing soap while traveling. Are they less vegan? For some dictionary maybe, but most people don’t care about definition absolutism and prefer focus on the motivations and the results.
> How does omnivore not cover most people’s diets in India?
The dimensions of dietary regimes are even more complex in India than "omnivore" can capture. Some very religiously orthodox groups won't even eat onions and garlic because they are believed to encourage behavioral and spiritual "tendencies" that they seek to avoid.
Some meat eating Hindus will avoid eating an animal that hasn't been killed with a single strike (in contrast to the Islamic Halal practice of bleeding animals when slaughtered).
> It seems like Indians use vegetarian to describe frequency or proportion of one’s diet that is animals.
Vegetarianism has a strong group-identitarian function in India. When it is used as a self-description, it generally is a claim to be 100% vegetarian (per the traditional definition).
The extent to which vegetarianism is proportional to an omnivore's diet is often based on social context, not percentage. For example, in religious contexts most Hindus adhere to vegetarianism, even if they are not vegetarian in secular and daily life contexts. There is a fair amount of dietary code-switching, and it's considered normal in the contexts where it occurs.
This is quite similar to the pattern seen in many other countries from Asia through to Christian Europe and Africa, where fasting often involves abstention from meat consumption.
India also has major differences in vegetarianism rates by region. The peak rates of vegetarianism are in the west and northwest (~70% in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Punjab), and the lowest rates are to be found in the south and east of India (~2%).
That really isn't that common, IMHO and speaks volumes about his empathy. Its true that my 6-month backpacking experiences are 14 and 16 years old and India is rather a continent on its own, not only population wise but also culturally and geographically so don't want to generalize here.
I've seen utter ignorance from ie older girls to stray dogs dying in the middle of the street, while I was reeling from mild shock sitting on the curb. I guess after few years there I would be desensitised too. Cows have it easy there, other animals not so much by western standards.
Its true that stray dogs specifically are also a potential threat, the picture ain't black & white.
https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/ratan-tata-ins...