Interesting experiences

I am a vegetarian. More out of habit than religion. (I’m not very religious.) What that means, in practice, is that I don’t eat non-vegetarian food knowingly. But it has happened unknowningly. Many times. Until I was 22, I had not been out of India on my own, and things were fine. In 1998, I went to Charlotte, NC, for training. (On a KLM flight that placed me illegally in Germany, but that’s another story.) I was pretty groggy after an 8-hour night flight. So when I was woken up by the sound of breakfast, I bit into the big yellow thing on the tray in front. Sleepy as I was, I did feel a little suspicious. Didn’t quite taste sweet, like I was expecting it to. I saved it for the last, when Ram, my manager, walked past. ...

UTSUNOMIYA, Japan, Dec 1998. I was on a project with Honda R&D at Utsunomiya, Japan. And I’m vegetarian. The next day, Yoshioka-san – our counterpart at Honda – took us to the canteen and introduced me to the chef. Knowing that “vegetarian” in Japan includes eating fish and birds, I took the chef aside. “I’m vegetarian,” I emphasised. “Hai. Vegetarian.” “I don’t eat fish.” “Ah, so. No fish.” “I don’t eat chicken. No birds.” ...

Earthquake. We were in class this morning. We started off with 2 minutes of silence for the earthquake victims. At about 8:15AM, we felt a slight shake. We quickly ran out of the room and down the stairs. By this time, the tremors got fairly strong but they lasted only 7-8 seconds. At around lunch time, the estate officer said we were expecting more tremors at noon, so we lined up at the open air theatre, but nothing happened. ...