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.