deepavali: not for the faint of heart...

Deepavali: the most important Indian (Hindu) holiday. No one seems to know what it is "really" about, but the two most important things seem to be new clothes (shopping madness) and firecrackers (the more deafening, the better). Everyone is in the festive spirit, and this includes pooling your money together with the neighbors and buying a goat or two. I'm not sure where folks got the idea that Indians are (mostly) vegetarians. Because most of them love meat. They might not eat cows, but they love them some goat meat. Just tonight I was heading over to the medical stall to buy some honey (considered a medicine!) and I noticed a couple of (cute) goats tied out front, happily munching on fodder and oblivious to the giddily happy, salivating humans surrounding them. I immediately knew they were going to be lunch, and the neighbors had quite a good time joshing me about it. The fact that I am a vegetarian is something they respect but have a great time making fun of me about. Especially when I tell them that my family kept goats for 15 years, but as pets! They ask me if we ate them when they died and look disappointed and confused when I tell them no. Why would someone waste a perfectly good goat that people here would pay thousands of rupees for the (rare) pleasure of eating? I am trying to be an open-minded vegetarian, but I think I'll be absent tomorrow when these two oblivous goats go to the chopping block.

Deepavali: not exactly for goat-lovers.