Vegetables and me

I am one of the rare species on this planet left who likes to eat vegetables. I like the ones that have leaves, ones that do not and ones that try to but it was flower that was written in their destiny. I even like bitter gourd - the scariest (and sadly most hated!) vegetable ever. Over the time, i have learnt to appreciate the beauty in eating vegetables and their delicious taste.

But what has happened to today's kids ? They have stopped eating vegetables all together. Leave alone the scary ones, they even say no to the better ones like lady's finger (If there is an award for best name given to any object or living organism, lady's finger should win it without competition). According to a survey conducted by a fictitious company with head office located in Shashi Raveendra's head, 90% of the children hate bitter gourd. All children below 10 years cry by simply hearing the name bitter gourd even though they do not realize its meaning, making their parents to eat bitter gourd in a dark basement. In that perfectly real survey, it was also found that 80% children are eating only 20% of the vegetables. Participants (the children) have no idea about the difference between fenugreek leaves and spinach leaves. Participants laughed and called the interviewer a moron when he asked them about sweet potato, with the reply being "Potato is not sweet, is this a trick question?"

We humans complain that each one of us have different destinies, some are rich, some poor, some are educated, some not. And there are hundreds of dimensions, not to forget the four varnas written in our scriptures as well. But who would have thought that even vegetable kingdom had so many classes and culture. Fruits are like the Brahmins of vegetable - highly upper caste. And this is proved by the fact that grow on trees which are taller than the shrubs. If you were wondering that God made trees long to give you shade, oxygen etc, you were mistaken. It is just that they belong to the upper caste. Root vegetables like Beetroot, carrot, radish, turnip etc are the shudras of vegetable class hierarchy. No one gives any importance to them. But since potatoes and onions also come in this class, everyone else is dependent on them yet they are given the least respect.

If you are not a fruit and and not a root, you are somewhere in between and there is no clear cut demarcation between whether you are a kshatriya or a vaishya. But with this all class hierarchy, there are some who have risen above it and made their presence felt. For example, the cucumber who is liked by everybody, even the children. Look at how they fight to eat more cucumber (giving inferiority complex to other members of the salad). And these children, particularly girls, when they grew up, they still remembered the pleasing effect of cucumber that they use it on their eyes to give a fresh, soothing effect.

Where there is a hierarchy, there is a freedom struggle to abolish it but as they say no revolution is successful if it is not present at the grassroots(No pun intended). Alas! it is now left on humans to ensure that peace is maintained within the vegetable kingdom. We do know that an angry vegetable has a very bad taste indeed!


--thass