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I am a really gullible person. I don’t think I can ever become a judge or lawyer because I tend to believe what anyone says. I want to understand the emotions behind every action and try to justify everything. This was really frustrating sometimes and I used to think of myself as if I am the lesser one than others because of this. But I read somewhere that taking long time to make a decision does not make one cowardly or bad. It may be just that he/she is trying to judge more deeply and sincerely based on his/her beliefs. That was comforting atleast, if not true.

Well as I have grown up to a certain extent now, I have matured slightly and have given up on this understanding thing. No it doesn’t mean that I don’t try to find everyone’s reasons but I know now that it can be mentally exhausting. Sometimes people are as they are and there is no particular reason behind their actions.

But now I try to understand my thoughts more clearly and now too I cannot come to a decision easily. I am fairly quick in making decisions like what to eat, career choices and all that. I don’t think too much about them and let my heart take the decisions. But when it comes to making ethical decisions like religion, vegetarianism or animal welfare, I feel like I am struck between two sides of the story.

Earlier when I was in my school, I had certain preconceptions and was much clearer about these things. Like religions are good, we do everything like eating meat to survive and that’s how we are built. One day I came home and even discussed this with my mum. I told her that plants are living too and there are bacteria in curd etc., the classic excuses for non vegetarian people. I think I was too young then and was fascinated by the idea of trying new foods. But now that I think about it, I am thankful that my family has been vegetarian from start.

What my mum told me that day got stuck in my head and I was in the same dilemma again. She said that yeah plants have lives too and it may be possible that they are feeling pain but they are the least we can eat to survive. Even scientists say that plants do not have emotions comparable to animals. Animals feel that sense of togetherness that we feel with our friends and I would never let someone treat my friends or family the same way as those animals. The mere idea is horrifying.

So I thought that I had come to a conclusion and now I can rest. But then again how can a person like me have her mind at rest. Again some things happen and again I am standing at the fork of the two roads. For example many of my friends are non vegetarians and they are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Ethically so correct that I had to question myself again. Then whenever you go to twitter you are always bound to see two sides of the story. People are claiming that we are omnivores and vegetarianism may lead to ecological imbalance and much more.

But as I had said that I have matured slightly now and I think it is us humans who are causing ecological imbalance by farming animals like plants. Of course agriculture also leads to deforestation and pollution but it is much lesser than animal husbandry. So, at last I came to conclusion that we humans were born with a really wicked fate. We are destined to sin in order to survive and we have to live on other species’ pain. But if I have a choice between two sins, I will always choose the less painful one. And hence here I am, a proud vegetarian and an aspiring vegan. My thoughts may stirr again and I may have to think about it again ,then I may understand my non vegetarian friends’ choices, but I will never give up on vegetarianism. Because I wish to cause as minimum damage as possible to this earth.

Before starting the story, let’s set the background. I am a really really light sleeper. Even a teeniest bit of light and sound of someone breathing a little loudly can wake me up. So I am accustomed to sleeping in pitch black kind of darkness where you can’t even see your own hand. And as I sleep with my younger sister, I can easily shut her up if she makes any noise. Everything used to be in my control.

But recently I shifted to hostel where I had to share my room with two other people. And to my horror, my room wasn’t pitch dark there. A lot of light came to our room from the corridor’s tube light of building opposite to my room. So then came my sleep mask which was still uncomfortable but I could sleep thanks to it. But then came the exam season. Going back to the background, I never get stressed about exams. I can’t study for more than 2 hours continuously and night study is not my cup of tea. I score fairly good marks without compromising on my sleep. But sadly and quite obviously my roommates were not like that. They studied day and night without breaks and I had extreme difficulty in sleeping with lights on. More often I would end up sobbing at 2 am over my helplessness. I couldn’t sleep anywhere else as that was the only room I had and that led to a lot of irritability on subsequent days.

After escaping those hellish days, I can say that I have understood the importance of perfect environment for sleep. So yesterday, when I saw some pigeons struggling to sleep, it broke my heart.

Yesterday, there was some problem in our electric meter, so we were waiting for some technicians to arrive. It was around 12 am, I was standing in my balcony with my sister and we noticed how well lit our area was thanks to multiple streetlights. The context behind this discussion was that despite of this well lit street, a stupid person had requested officials for one more streetlight near our house.

We were furious as that may lead to a lot of light in our house too which is highly undesirable. It was then that my sister pointed out to two pigeons. They were sleeping in tiniest space where they could barely stand beneath a first floor window. It has always been fascinating to see the pigeons sleeping. I have always wondered how they can sleep while standing. But these pigeons were not sleeping comfortably. Their chests were fluffed up which is a clear indication that they were stressed. They had took shelter inside that window to avoid the light coming from streetlights.

I felt so bad for them and was instantly reminded of my own experience. Then I remembered how there are no more sparrows or other birds in our city any more. I kind of knew about it all but seeing it in front of me really made me wonder. Why have we done all this to our nature. Nature built natural street lights in form of stars but our greed has drove us insane. We can easily go and sleep inside our air conditioned pitch dark rooms but what about these birds. They must feel so helpless and sad. But why would we care, as we know we are originally animals only. Our well being comes first. But sometimes I really wonder that is there some kind of solution anywhere which could help humans coexist with all our fellow organisms peacefully and happily ever after.