My encounter with Bakaasur@Green Glen Layout’- What would it take to go vegetarian?

According to the great Indian epic Mahabharata, Bakasur was a cannibal who terrorized a hamlet, by  gorging on the ‘delicious’ flesh of human beings. The villagers lived in the mortal fear of being consumed live, by the demon.  But as evil manifests, the good has to reincarnate with greater might. As destiny had it, the hamlet was saved from the demon, by the brave Pandava princes(Bheem), who slayed the demon  and established righteousness.

My encounter with Bakaasur@B’lore is allegorical to the above excerpt from Mahabharat.

 

The opening, the hope and the opaque dream to see VEG

 The bustling, self-contained colony, I live in, is dotted with restaurants of all cadres, cuisines and categories. Every new eatery that announces its existence is definitely to be tasted, tested and tried. And so it happened, that the marketing build-up to open a restaurant along the grand entrance of our colony of apartments,  had started to titillate the taste-buds of one and all. I for being a gastronome of the first water, was waiting with eagerness for the restaurant to come live with new flavours and secretly prayed that it would be a pure vegetarian restaurant.

The new and the rising, therefore held promises for me to bring home  a “Khazaana, of shaakahaari Khaana”. But the hope did not last long, when the nameless was finally baptized as “Bakaasur”

 

Did Bakaasur beckon?

Well, needless to say, this was going to be another of those out-of-the-world multi-cuisine restaurants, which Bangalore proudly sports in plenty. After all, the name “Bakasur” true to its origins, could never have evolved to embrace greens and eat from plaintain leaves!

But then the marketing hype around Bakasur could not go waste. It had to be tried and tested, as I was sure that even the NON-veg  doesn’t nullify the VEG in totality(I still hold the impression that some amount of veggies are kept in stock even in a pure non-veg restaurant, to stuff up the poor  creatures before they are drifted into the netherworld of the human gut!)

I dare to  venture into the forbidden @the Bakasur’s cave

The night, self and family decided to dine at Bakasur was one of those nights, which did not behold any special occasion.  But pressing  demands had drained out the last ounce of energy from my body, to even think of mustering some strength to cook and satiate some one’s appetite.

So with hunger pangs, striking us from all directions, we decided to make our maiden culinary journey through Bakasur.

The ambience was dark like a cave and I suddenly felt the presence of weird cave-like creatures around. They were the torsos of fierce animals, stuffed with the pride of man's victory over animals. I could anticipate  what was in store for me.

 

The aromas from the COOK’s lair

The ambience was complemented by the distinct aromas of lively creatures getting appropriately juiced and dressed up. ( being a vegetarian all my life, I could never fail to recognize the NON part of the whole affair, anywhere, anytime. It has always left me to wonder, as to how the dead could be spruced with such rigour by master chefs -after all even animals have a life- but then these chefs do it for a living). Just as doctors who whet their knives to cut, slice and layer, to prolong life-span; the chefs work in anti-parallel to add spice to the rather insipid dying and snuff their breath out!

 

On a platter

It took a long time for us to excavate something VEG in the non-VEG infested menu card and finally when we did, it looked like it would take eons to deliver the goods. But to keep us entertained, were the ongoing services to other tables, who were being served grilled chicken, mutton curry, fish-fries and a melange of other delicacies that sizzled to bring live the taste-buds from the mortal remains of another living creature!

 

Watching the fellow cavemen digging in

Well, we call ourselves the most evolved of the animal kingdom and the human in every aspect. Yet when I saw my fellowmen digging into their trough with such unrestrained enthusiasm,  i noted that:

1)      When a chicken thigh or breast  was bitten into, there was the savage look, that wanted to dig deeper into the flesh and proclaim “ I ain’t chicken and I will squeeze out every drop of blood from you”. Yes, it looked a battle for a cause, unknown . And the "blood-stained" lips that were licked to wipe out the last trace , made it look like I was witnessing a vampire still on a hot trail.

2)      The lamb chops were shovelled in with no less frightful zest. If the chicken did not satiate, the lamb chops, was the means to ultimate revelry. “Chomp and Crunch”, and one could discern the cavemen surging forth, to participate in an orgy(after all when ba-lambs are plucked from their moms, with a killer instinct, what comes in succession is a burning desire to display lust and therefrom  spring into activity )

3)      Meats and sorts: My lack of roots in non-vegetarianism thwarted any further classification  of the variety- fare around .  One thing that I found in common was the barbaric spirit  brought out in the so-called refined and reputable entities of society, all set to strike, with no strain of mercy!

Where art thou, human?

  Anything that crept,  crawled, slithered or flew as part of the diverse fauna, had found its way to Bakaasur’s belly. Here, they were squashed and churned through a wide array of techniques, in a way that could have provided ample stuffing for a crime-fiction thriller. 

But then, they were animals - the quadrupeds, whose free spirit was imprisoned in man’s territory. The very  man who evolved from these animals, with a higher intellect, a finer instinct to rise up to a humane soul that would protect and sustain life than destroy it. Even if eating non-vegetarian foods was a matter of personal choice, it did not justify the cruelty meted out to animals, in order to make them fit for consumption.  

I felt the same demon surfacing from the  “soul-less” blobs of flesh(not to affront my fellow humans), who were blissfully unaware of the crime they were perpetrating and the precedent that they were setting for the future generations – an inhuman act that would only leave behind a blueprint for regression. Were we falling back to the old stone age?

And so mulling no further, I declared Bakasur as the underbelly of predators, to be given the heave-ho, in no time. I left the place with a heavy heart and an empty tummy.  But then, I resolved with an iron will, to rise as a HUMAN for the meek quadrupeds and, speak!