More power to vegetarians!

When you travel abroad, it is probably only then that you become starkly aware of the divide between a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian. Here in India, vegetarianism is taken for granted, except probably when you go visiting West Bengal, Kerala and Goa. But even here the choice for vegetarians has gone up. 

When majority is vegetarian, naturally, hotels have to learn to cater to this crowd. Just as McDonalds and Dominos offer big choices for vegetarians, KFC adds vegetarian options to its menu, big Five Star hotels too have learnt that the deep pocketed ones are mainly vegetarians and if they need to corner a share of their market, they need to essentially have more vegetarian options. Interestingly, seven out of ten of the richest Indians are vegetarians and this includes the veritable who’s who of India Inc like Ambanis, Adanis, Birlas, Ruias, Mittals, Jindals, Bajajs, Dhoots, Piramals, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, Modis, Bhartias, Goenkas, Murthys and Srinivasans. There are many more but with the name of the crème de la crème in this list, it more or less helps us understand the ‘influence’ of vegetarians.

Taj, Oberoi, Leela all the best hotels in India have menus catering to the super rich vegetarians. And even those abroad are catering to this super rich. Like the Michelin 3-starred Waterside Inn near London, with regulars like Birlas and Mittals, it has built a fantastic vegetarian menu.  But all this comes as a jaw dropping price tag, which most of us would be earning as a monthly salary!

The super rich do live in an unreal world, which has no resemblance to the real world in which we live. But paying exhorbitant prices for exotic food preference insults any intelligent thinking mind. Veggie foods are wholesome and healthy and it should never cost the earth and the moon, anywhere in the world. But then, the super rich do not belong to ‘our’ world…..