The Vegan Journey of VLN Sudhish | VBI #018

From being a hard core non vegetarian till May 2006 to eggetarian till 2016, he turned vegan when he got to know about eggs and dairy. He is a software engineer, who loves cycling, badminton, and outreaches. He was a person who could eat flesh and eggs for the whole week if it were not for the auspicious Fridays and Saturdays. Presently, he takes every opportunity to spread word about animal rights and the most favourite of his is bus-journey activism.

Can you take us back to 2006, when you had quit non veg. What made you do that?

I was habituated with meat; I could eat it every day. Apart from Fridays and Saturdays due to a religious belief, my family used to consume meat the whole week. We would eat eggs, chicken, mutton, anything. I used to consume meat the most. On Sundays, I used to go to the market to purchase them too. I used to choose live chicken which was most healthy. In 2005, I was a student living in Hyderabad for my coaching. To reach my coaching institute I used to take an auto ride early in the morning everyday. There was a big slaughter house on the way and every day I used to see many goats and sheep standing outside of that slaughterhouse. One early morning, I saw three very young calves running in the opposite direction during the same auto ride. There was a guy chasing them on the road. Definitely, they would have been killed that day. I started thinking that this shouldn't be happening to the calves. Then, I realised that the plight of goats, sheep and chicken are also the same but I was consuming them. They also have the right to live. My transition began that time. I quit eating on my own, however on being insisted by family, I used to consume meat a bit. Within a few months, by June 2006, I had completely quit all sorts of meat.

You used to love egg so much, how difficult was it to quit it?

It was instant. I watched the male chick’s maceration video of the egg industry a friend had shared on Facebook and got to know the cruelty behind it. Until then, I wasn't aware of it.. I didn't know about how equally cruel the dairy industry is! After watching various documentaries like cowspiracy, Forks Vs Knives, Earthlings, World According to Monsanto, Deadly Dairy, I understood the cruelty of the dairy industry too. I transitioned over a period of time. Few months before that, I had started consuming cheese and became quite addicted to it. I wanted to gain weight and for that reason I consumed cheese a lot. Curd also was my favourite. It took me a few weeks to quit dairy products but finally I turned vegan. 

How was it at home? Were your parents convinced easily?

My parents were not very convinced, but they never used to force me. My mom used to say sometimes, "I've made nice non-veg food, you can try it once and might change your decision". However, nobody forced me to eat meat. There were queries regarding why I am doing so. 

You mentioned facing Hemoglobin deficiency. Can you elaborate more on that?

In 2017, a year after I became vegan. I was diagnosed with very low hemoglobin at around 6.5 (Normal level: Male: 13.8 to 17.2 grams per deciliter ; Female: 12.1 to 15.1 g/dL). I felt lethargic all the time, I lost weight. I used to gasp for breath after climbing just around 15 stairs to reach my office on the first floor of a building. I can't express in words how I used to feel then. I used to feel like vomiting many times, sometimes dizziness too. I was finding it hard to taste things properly. But, I didn't know it was because of hemoglobin deficiency. After consulting the doctors, I got to know that due to low B12, my hemoglobin had reached such a low level. One doctor recommended transfusion, which I found bizarre. I went to an allopathic doctor, and he told me that I need to start non-veg food or dairy products until I recover. I told him non-veg and egg wasn't at all possible, even milk too. He asked me to start at least curd. I consumed curd for around a month. In addition, I had to take B12 shots for around 2 months. I had to consume beetroot juice, peanuts and jaggery too. So, I was fine within a month itself.

After that, I started analysing whether I will have to consume curd everytime this happens. I started researching on my own. I found out that consuming curd was not at all a necessity. It is not produced naturally by any animal or plant and has to be supplemented. Thus, I started taking supplements as per recommendations. Till now, I have never faced that situation again. Nowadays, many packaged foods are also fortified with B12. So, consuming them also can help people, but supplements are required.

Note: You can find about B12 supplements, dosage and more here: https://sharan-india.org/vitamin-b12/

https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/vitamin-b12/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12

Do you take any particular care regarding nutrition in order to be active in sports?

No, I'm quite a simple person and eat regular food items. In Pune, I eat mostly from dabbawalas. It consists of roti, sabzi, dal and rice. Apart from that, I consume fruits.

How and when did your animal rights activism start?

When I was having B12 deficiency, I used to find my food tasteless. So, I started looking for a vegan restaurant to see if that food might help. During that time, I got to know about the restaurant “Granny's Bowl”. There I met Jaya for the first time. She is the owner of that restaurant. I had an idea that we can have big billboards on the road promoting veganism the way it is done in western countries. I didn't know whom to talk to about this. I called Jaya and asked her if someone could sponsor that. Then, she mentioned Darshana Muzumdar. She is an animal rights activist. I talked to her, and we had a good discussion. She mistook me for the sponsor. I clarified to her about it. Later, she added me to the Living Free FIAPO group and asked if I can raise funds for that. That's when I came to know that there are so many vegans out there. I was a guy who used to shy away from talking to strangers. I wanted to do activism, but I used to think that people won't speak or listen to me.

In that group, there were frequent posts about outreaches. I used to think that convincing people to change their food habits or even talking to them about it would be difficult. One day, I watched Darshana's “morning walk talks” video. She was talking to some people and telling them about the dairy industry. I watched a few more videos of that outreach. Similar conversations were there in all of them and people were getting convinced. Then, I realised that this is quite easy and I can do it myself.

I told the group that I want some leaflets and I want to do it my way. I wanted to do it in buses because I used to commute by bus every day to my office. Darshana asked me to contact Astha from Vegan Outreach. I spoke to her and she asked me to come to one of the outreaches to collect the leaflets. Astha and Vaibhavi were already there. They were about to start the outreach. I took the leaflets from there and was about to leave. Then, Astha asked me if I wanted to do the outreach that day, since I was already there. They explained to me how to go about it and made me feel comfortable. When I saw that people were listening to me, it was a great experience for me. All this gave me the confidence to reach out to people. After that, I used to speak to people during my commute, at least one person a day. Most of the time people used to listen to me, and as the number of listeners increased, so did my confidence. Earlier, I used to be nervous to initiate the conversation. However, over a period of time I became quite comfortable.

Once, as I was coming back from the office, I met two ladies on a bus. I started talking to them about the cruel dairy industry. They were asking questions about the nutrition aspect too. By the time the conversation ended, they were quite convinced of what I was saying and agreed to my point of view. Coincidentally, they also got down at the same place. At the end, I got to know that they were homeopathic doctors. They said that whatever I told them made sense, which only means that even the doctors just memorise things without even asking themselves questions like, “Is milk not liquid baby food? Yes, then why do we recommend our patients to drink the milk of other species?”. 

Your message to non-vegans...

We've become insensitive to the sufferings of others.“Others” is not defined and is different for everyone. Everyone has their boundaries. That boundary needs to be expanded so that we are compassionate towards not selected beings, but all the creatures on this planet. Many times, we turn a blind eye to the sufferings of others by thinking that it’s not our concern. If this sort of mentality continues, you can never expect peace on Earth. Please join the movement to make the world a better place to live in.

 

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The Vegan Journey of Shraddha Hegde and Sana Shaikh | VBI #017

Shraddha Hegde (SH) is a final year engineering undergrad and SanaShaikh (SS) is in her third year of engineering at College of Engineering, Pune. Both the best friends turned vegan the same day around 1.5 years back and have been spiritedly doing activism and spreading the word about animal rights and sustainable lifestyle.

While Shraddha loves to read good books and watch good series, Sana is extremely passionate about cooking and nutrition.

What made both of you go vegan together?

A group of activists came to our college from Vegan Outreach. They showed a video and also gave us a leaflet. We couldn't watch the whole video as we had class. But I read the leaflet after college and also watched a video called 'Why Vegan' by Arvind Animal Activist. We were so hurt after watching that video. There were tears in our eyes. That moment we decided to go vegan. Few months before this incident, we were trying to go vegetarian as we knew how non vegetarian food affects health and also leads to animal cruelty. But this incident was the turning point. 

How was it going vegan in the mess and hostel environment? How did you people manage? 

SS: In the mess, it was easy because everything was vegetarian. We used to skip some of the items like paneer and butter products. To skip butter, we used to request the mess uncle to make arrangements for us wherever possible. When there was a whole paneer menu, that time it used to become a bit difficult for us. However, that was a very rare situation. On those days we managed with pickles. With friends, we hardly used to go out. Whenever we did go outside, we went together. When we went out with other friends, we bought vegan food. Our friends were quite understanding regarding this while choosing the place and while ordering.

What was the response of each of your families for the first time when you both went home from college?

SH: For the previous six months prior to turning vegan, I had stopped eating non veg food. So in December, when my mom forced me to eat non veg food, I just refused. She didn't say anything at that point of time. After turning vegan, when I went home in Feb, the first time I went home, they thought that it was just temporary. They tried to convince me that it's not good for my health. Also, because of my irregular food habits, I had lost quite a bit of weight too. It was not because I had turned vegan but because of my food habits. I am already skinny and because of this issue, my parents were trying to force me to start eating again. I just kept refusing to do it. In my initial days, I was very aggressive and had clashes with my parents. So, my parents used to feel weird consuming dairy or meat in front of me and I would almost fight during every meal. 

But then, I went back to Pune and after meeting other activists, I was less aggressive in my advocacy and I stopped expecting from close people. 

SS: For me, it was a bit easy because I had done such a diet change in my life earlier. That time, it was for weight loss. I had skipped all non veg and sweet food for 2.5 months in my ninth standard. I always had an inclination towards health. I used to tell them about health and the  animal aspects as well. I thought that the health aspect will make more impact on my family members because they are very health conscious and also being in a Muslim family, it is more effective. So, they were quite okay with my decision. But when I used to do activism on social media or hammer them to not eat non veg or dairy, then they used to get angry and speak out. Other than that, it was smooth apart from a few concerns regarding my nutrition.

Before turning vegan, whenever I used to go home, there were a lot of non veg dishes prepared because my mess is vegetarian. But this time, before going home I spoke to my mother and instructed her to not prepare anything non vegetarian because I was not going to eat it. So, this time she prepared veg pulav for me. Over the few months, I used to emotionally blackmail my mom whenever on video call about dairy. I know this isn't suggested and my method might be wrong, but my mom was okay with it. After around 7-8 months she also turned vegan. My nani is also trying to cut down on dairy products but because of her age, I never force her.

You both mentioned about cooking and zero waste. So, how did that interest develop? 

SS: Actually, after I went vegan, I started exploring zero waste living and minimalism. I think going vegan was a very important part of our lives. We were inspired by some Youtubers who were vegan and following minimalism. I was very fascinated by that idea. I realised that our lifestyle makes a big impact on Earth. I used to think that I need to be outside and I should plant more and more trees, and I have to do big things. But I realised that even by changing my lifestyle, I can make a huge difference, so this was very fascinating. Shraddha is actually more minimalistic compared to me. I'm trying to live a zero waste lifestyle. 

SH: I don't know when minimalism started in my life, it just happened. I didn't like buying a lot of things and I didn't like owning things. Because then, you have to always worry about their safety and maintenance, and spend money on them. That's why I didn't like having more things. So, I felt it would be better for me to have just a couple of clothes to wear, and that's enough. I don't like wearing many accessories. I think that's how I am. So, it just happened. I didn't know about the concept. There are people who think about looking good in photos, I don't have such interests.

After some time, I realised that it's so important to be an activist and to use our energy on more impactful things. It's not great to spend excessive time judging each other if someone eats some food item containing milk products accidentally. I am not saying that we should eat such products, but we should not spend too much energy on it. For example, sometimes when we have a full paneer menu in the mess, we used to remove paneer from the rice and then eat the rice. Now, if a small piece of paneer accidentally goes into our mouth, I think it's okay. In short, it's much more important to talk to more and more people and spread awareness. 

How has been your activism experience?

Officially, we are not in any particular organisation full time. We're doing activism individually with a few groups.  We started volunteering with AFTA (All For The Animals), an independent activist group in Pune. We also joined Pune Animal Save group. Currently, AFTA is the most active group in Pune.

Recently during this lockdown, we started an activist group in our native town, Ichalkaranji, because we didn't have any Animal Rights activist group here. People are very enthusiastic about it. We are going to organise our first outreach soon.

SH: Before we joined any activism group,we were doing activism on our own through social media platforms and sending personal messages to everyone in our contact. It didn't turn out very well. People used to make fun of us and they thought we were very extreme. People used to give us arguments like plants also feel pain, this is the food cycle and other such excuses. They always wanted to win the argument. We had a lot of problems with such people and because of that, we lost many friends. They stopped talking to us. I think we were aggressive and our approach could have been better. This was the initial stage of our activism.

After that, we joined a few Pune Activists and got to know that there are a lot of vegans in Pune. Through them, we got to know about a lot of cafes and restaurants. That was a good phase when we made a lot of new friends. We also learnt how to do activism and how to put our points forward in a better manner. We also learnt not to argue with some people who are not ready to listen.

According to me, reaching out to the right people is more important. The end line should always be ‘Get active’ and not 'Go vegan'. When we say get active for animals, going vegan will always follow. Our task should be to educate the people about animal cruelty and how it's happening. Going vegan should come from within and should be their opinion. We should not enforce our opinions on anyone. Awareness is the most important thing right now.

SS: When we met the vegan community, I think it was a really great experience. We felt really alone before that. Some people tried mocking and bullying us in college. I can't describe it in words, but meeting them removed that void and we could continue being vegan comfortably. We understood the right approach. The positive thing is that some of our friends also became vegan. We have a college WhatsApp group for all the vegans. It is more for a support group rather than activism. However, one good thing we achieved when our mess was trying to introduce eggs in the menu. Some people raised the demand to include eggs and we opposed that decision. That time, two girls were really triggered and joined us to oppose the same. We distributed leaflets in our hostel, we talked to girls and explained why they shouldn't accept this decision. Many vegetarian people think that there is no problem with people eating eggs. We told them the process and explained how we are indirectly supporting this industry. Finally, we convinced them. Coronavirus also helped in a way, they were distracted and didn't introduce the eggs in the menu. The best part was we got two activists through this incident.

How is the Ichalkaranji group going?

It's been a month since we started online. We had a Zoom meeting once. We had a physical meeting last Sunday (21st June'20). We were surprised that so many people are aware about it in our town. One of the persons is already vegan, another is in the transition phase. Three more people who've joined completely agree with the philosophy of veganism.

SS: We used to think that Pune is a metro city and people are open minded. We are surprised that the students in Ichalkaranji are listening much more compared to the students in our college. This has happened very randomly when one of my friends asked me about such an idea. The elephant issue really accelerated this plan. Our goal is to train people in this Ichalkaranji chapter and they can carry on when we will be back to college. Even if one person turns out to be really active from this group, I think it would be great. We are creating content in Hindi and Marathi as well so that the reach is greater and more people can understand.

Simultaneously we have started the Kolhapur chapter too which is the district in which Ichalkaranji is situated. From one of the Ichalkaranji activists, I contacted an animal shelter in Kolhapur. She happened to be vegan. She is quite active but doesn't have any group in Kolhapur. We decided to start another group in Kolhapur and she is the perfect person to handle it. We have another Pune activist who is also looking at the Kolhapur chapter right now. 

SH: One thing that worked for us was the change in approach. When we were calling people to join us, we were focusing on animal cruelty and animal rights. It was all about animals. A lot of them joined because of that. When we had a Zoom meeting, we introduced to them about speciesism and shared a few videos about it and how we can stop it. This approach really helped to get people into the movement. When we start directly by veganism, people hesitate a lot.

You people discovered many food items in college life after turning vegan. How was that journey? 

Actually, most of the street food is already vegan, so there wasn't much of a problem while eating junk. In the restaurants, the issue is with ghee or butter. On request, that is easily avoidable. We've tried a lot of food items, be it vegan pizza, hot chocolate or ice cream in various vegan cafes. Some of them were a bit expensive because as students, we were not used to spending too much on food. However, we found them really good and completely similar to the ones that we have eaten before. We publicised it a lot and made some non vegan friends also try it out.

We used to think that the pav of Vada Pav is non vegan. We used to love Garden Vada Pav of Pune, and to our surprise, most of the Pav is vegan, including theirs! 

Our best memories are our hostel food experiments. We had an electric kettle in our room (which is actually not allowed in the hostel). We made vegan coconut kheer. We used coconut milk, jaggery, nuts and elaichi. It was a jugaad recipe. We also shared it with our roommates and they found it tasty as well. It was a really great experiment. We used to make Soya rice too. We invented many recipes in the hostel. We have made all of them in that electric kettle.

SH: Last year, when I went for my summer internship, I used to cook my own curries in the morning in a kettle for lunch. I used to get chapatis in the cafe there. We discovered how to make even Bhindi, palak, Khichdi ...everything in a kettle. It was not just Maggi anymore.

Any message you both would like to share?

SS: I want to tell one thing to all the students who can't go vegan because of the peer pressure or due to certain limitations. If you are trying to make a positive change in your life, if you think that will make an impact on the Earth, then don't think of the people around you. Even if someone is bullying you or a very close friend is making fun of you, I think it's okay to change the company instead of changing your own decision. Your company is very important, especially in hostel life. Some people think that they can't do this because their friend is not okay with it. If you believe in your decision, go ahead with it. Try finding like minded people if required.  If someone is making fun of you just because you are against animal cruelty, then it doesn't make sense. I think because of our company, it was very easy to be vegan or start activism.

I hope this helps students like us to take their decision and not get suppressed because of peer pressure. It's possible that people around you might not go vegan. Be yourself. Soon, people around you will join you, maybe a little later.

 

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