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"What sort of brahmins you are? Fish-eating brahmins," jibed her neighbour when the smell of fried fish was wafting through the air. Neeta was not in a mood of argument. She just smiled and went inside her house.
She was not able to understand what was wrong with eating fish. She felt what people eat or rather what they want to eat should be left to them. Why unnecessarily get into the argument that vegetarian food is good and non-vegetarian is bad?
Neeta was thinking about this when she remembered an article written by Dr.J C Bose which she had read a long time ago. J C Bose did a number of experiments on plants. For his experiments, he plucked leaves, carrots, and turnips from his garden. He experimentally proved that plants have a sensitive nervous system and the response to stimuli could be measured and recorded. Remember the touch me not (Mimosa) plant. While in school, our teachers did teach us about the response of plants to external stimuli. And then after knowing that every time we see a Mimosa plant we just touch it to check if it does respond to stimuli.
In one of his experiments he saw that when a plant was dipped in bromide, the pulse beat of the plant became unsteady when the plant started taking in the poison. This proved that plants have life. He also demonstrated experimentally that the pulse beat of a plant increases when a drop of caffeine is added to the water in which the roots of the plant are kept and it decreases when chloroform is added. He also showed how plants grow more quickly when exposed to nice music and gentle whispers and grow poorly when they are exposed to harsh music and loud speech. Plants even become depressed when exposed to polluted air and dark skies.
What do these experiments prove?
J C Bose proved that plants can feel pleasure and pain. He had once said that, "All around us plants are communicating. We just don't notice it."
So next time you try to preach or tell someone that vegetarianism is good, please do imagine your vegetables convulsing and gasping with horror in your pots and pans as they too have life.
In my opinion, let people eat what they want. It is needed for the sustenance of life on earth. Do not think that by eating vegetarian food you are being the saint. You are equally cruel as in this case the cruelty is meted out to plants.
According to me if you want to be a saint you should start eating metal, as till now nobody has proven that they have life and one day when some scientist proves that even they have life then I don't know what would we eat.