Veg or non-veg? In Mumbai, it matters

By Ramola Talwar Badam, Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
Monday, May 29, 2006 at 1:11 pm ET

Mumbai, India - Never mind pets, smokers or loud music at
2 a.m. House hunters in Mumbai increasingly are being
asked: "Do you eat meat?" If yes, the deal is off.

As this city of 16 million becomes the cosmopolitan main
nerve of a booming Indian economy, real estate is
increasingly intersecting with cuisine. More middle-class
Indians are moving in, more of them are vegetarian, and
the law is on their side.

"Some people are very strict. They won't sell to a
nonvegetarian even if he offers a higher price than a
vegetarian," said real estate broker Norbert Pinto.

Vegetarianism is a centuries-old custom among Hindus,
Jains and others in India. The government reckons India
has some 220 million vegetarians, more than anywhere else
in the world.

"Veg or non-veg?" is heard constantly in restaurants, at
dinner parties and on airlines. And the question has long
been an unwritten part of the interrogation house hunters
must submit to.

But it's becoming more open, and the effects more
noticeable, all the more so in Mumbai, which attracts
immigrants from Gujarat and Rajasthan, strongly
vegetarian states, as well as followers of the Jain
religion.

In constitutionally secular India, there's no bar to
forming a housing society and making an apartment block
exclusively Catholic or Muslim, Hindu or Zoroastrian.

Vegetarians say they too need segregation.

"I live in a cosmopolitan society," said Jayantilal Jain,
trustee of a charity group. "But vegetarians should be
given the right to admit who they want."

Rejected home-seekers have mounted a slew of court
challenges to the power of housing societies to
discriminate, but last year India's highest tribunal
ruled the practice legal.

"It's just not fair. It's a monopoly by vegetarians,"
said Kiran Talwar, 49, a prosthetics engineer who has
seen vegetarianism take over restaurants and groceries
all over his childhood neighborhood on posh Nepeansea
Road.

"If you step out to eat, there's nothing for miles
because everything around is veggie," he said.

Suburban supermarkets have been known to dump their non-
veg foods overnight because of complaints from shoppers.

"We cleared our shelves of tuna tins and frozen chicken.
We don't keep any nonvegetarian items now," said Neelam
Ahuja, owner of the K-value supermarket. "Many customers
don't like non-veg, so we stopped stocking it."

K-value took the action even though it's in a heavily
Christian neighborhood, and Christians in India aren't
known to have particularly many vegetarians among them.

While Indians are accustomed to housing societies
demarcated by religion, separation by diet has meat-
eaters worried. Mumbai likes to think of itself as a city
wide open to the world, and some worry that the
vegetarian tide goes against that trend.

Vikramaditya Ugra, a young Mumbai banker in search of an
apartment, said vegetarian colonies were fine in
neighboring Gujarat, a state dominated by vegetarians.
"That's in tune with local sensitivity," he said.

"But to impose this restriction is not right in a
cosmopolitan city like Mumbai."

Ravi Bhandari, a 68-year-old retired businessman, said he
tried to lease his apartment to an Indian oil company but
the housing society bluntly nixed the deal.

"They said the first tenant is vegetarian, but who knows
who will replace him?" said Bhandari, himself a
vegetarian who confesses that he had a soft spot for
chicken in his youth. "I respect their concerns so I
didn't lease my flat."

More at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060529/ap_on_re_as/india_veggies_only_1

[All instances of "Bombay" changed to
the correct name "Mumbai".  - JM]

Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/a5ljc
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti

Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust

Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org

The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate

    o  Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
    o  If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
    o  Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to:  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.