I am now in Europe for the last few years and one thing which I tried very intendedly in this period was to start eating nonvegetarian food without any second thought. To make it fancy to say, convert me from vegetarian to flexitarian. This wanted to avoid, myself look like an exception in the crowd for this reason, which I faced a lot in most of the social gatherings. This got a further boost by the fact that I was not a thoughtful vegetarian with some ethical feeling, but became so because I was grown in a strictly vegetarian brahmin family. Not to say, I had never tried eating anything which is termed non-vegetarian in my Hindu family.
Being in Europe, when need pushed me, I tried that. But, surprisingly, I found no taste in it. I was told that the taste has not developed as I never tasted such things as a child. It may appear if I try something closer to my familiar taste, they meant spicy :-). In this period, I got married, and my wife, a grown as non-vegetarian, claimed that when she cooks, it will be so tasty that I will like it. And, she was not the first and last one to claim so. However, everyone failed, so did she. Or, maybe they started passing.
I slowly started discovering that the childhood teaching that, giving pain to others for your pleasure is not good, is still sitting in my head. I try, or not my senses could feel that what I am eating is a product of a painful death of other life. People tried to convince me that plants too have life, but I know well that they don't have a brain to feel pain, nor they have others who feel an affinity with. Having this feeling, every time I try to break across, this wall gets higher and higher. Having a student hotel training to eat the worst kind of food, but nothing can bring a taste to me out of others' suffering.
