Chicken is tastey -But the Hen is beautiful!!

The Hen, the Lamb, and the Bull

I do not eat meat often. But when I do, I remember.

Not the taste. Not the price. Not the occasion. I remember a hen with one eye. A lamb that fit in my arms. A gray bull who looked at me like we had met before.

This is not a lecture. I am not here to tell you what to eat or not eat. I am here to tell you what lives in my chest when I lift a fork to my mouth. It is not guilt exactly. It is something heavier. Something like recognition.

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The Hen Who Would Not Leave Her Egg

There was a hen in my yard. Not a pet. Just a hen. She had found a place to sit on her eggs. Behind a bush. Hidden from the sun. She did what hens have done for thousands of years. She sat. She waited. She gave her body to the possibility of new life.

But her body was not made of stone. It was made of blood and heat and small bones. The days passed. The heat rose. The eggs did not hatch. And something grew on her eye. A swelling. A abscess. The kind that comes when the body is pushed past its limit.

She did not leave the nest. She would not. The eggs were not hers in the way property is yours. They were hers in the way breath is yours. She could not abandon them because abandoning them would be abandoning a part of herself.

I watched her. I did not know what to do. I could not fix her eye. I could not make the eggs hatch. I could only watch. And while I watched, I noticed something else.

The rooster. The male. The one who struts and crows and pretends he is the center of everything.

He would not leave her side.

When she sat on the nest, he stood near. When she went to find food, he walked beside her. If she wandered behind a bush and he could not see her, he made a sound I had never heard from a rooster before. Not a crow. Not a warning. Something softer. Something more like a question. Where are you? Are you still there?

He needed to see her. Not for mating. Not for territory. For something else. Something that looked like love if you are brave enough to use that word for a bird.

The eye never healed. The eggs never hatched. But the rooster kept calling. And I have not forgotten.

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The Lamb Who Radiated Heat

I saw a herd of goats once. Near my home. A shepherd was moving them from one field to another. Dust. Bleating. The smell of animals in the afternoon sun.

In the middle of the herd, a lamb. Small. New. Still learning how to walk without tripping.

I do not know what came over me. I am not a farmer. I am not a shepherd. I am a man who usually watches from a distance. But that day, I walked toward the lamb. I bent down. I picked it up.

It did not struggle. It did not cry for its mother. It just... settled. Into my arms. Into my chest. Into the warmth of a body that was not its mother but was warm enough.

I held it for a minute. Maybe less. But in that minute, I felt something I have never felt before or since. Heat. Not the heat of fever. Not the heat of sun. The heat of a small, living body that trusted me. Its ribs moved under my hands. Its heart beat against my arm. Its wool was soft in a way wool is never soft when you buy it in a shop.

I do not know if the lamb loved me. I do not know if lambs love anything except milk and warmth and the sound of their mother. But I know what I felt. Overwhelmed. Not by the cuteness. By the aliveness. By the sheer, radiating fact that this small creature existed and I was holding it and it was not afraid.

I put it down. It walked back to the herd. It did not look back. But I have looked back every day since.

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The Bull Who Knew Me

There was a worksite. My job. They hired a bullock cart to carry bricks. The bull was gray. Not the gray of concrete. The gray of river stones. Smooth. Ancient. Solid.

I do not know why I noticed him. There was nothing special about him from a distance. Just a bull. Just another animal doing work. But when I walked closer, something happened.

He looked at me.

Not the way animals usually look at you. Half curious. Half wary. Ready to move away. He looked at me like he had been waiting. Like he had seen me before and was glad I finally arrived.

I am not a religious man in the usual sense. But I know what I know. That bull knew me. Not my name. Not my story. Something deeper. Something that does not need words.

I showed him all the affection I had. I scratched behind his ears. I rubbed his neck. I spoke to him in a language that was not Hindi or English or Malayalam. A language that has no words. Just sounds. Just the shape of kindness.

He leaned into me. A bull. A thousand pounds of muscle and bone. Leaning into a man who weighs nothing in comparison. He closed his eyes. He breathed out. A long, slow breath that smelled of grass and dust and something else. Something like contentment.

This took maybe ten minutes. Then the bricks were loaded. The cart moved away. The bull walked off without looking back.

But I have looked back. Every time I see beef on a menu. Every time someone orders it. Every time I smell it cooking. I see his gray face. His patient eyes. His breath on my hands.

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The Dilemma That Does Not Leave

I eat meat rarely. But I do eat it. And when I do, I remember.

If it is chicken, I remember the hen with the swollen eye and the rooster who called for her when she was out of sight.

If it is mutton, I remember the lamb that fit in my arms and the heat that radiated from its small body.

If it is beef, I remember the gray bull who looked at me like we had known each other in another life.

I do not have an answer. I am not a vegetarian. I am not a philosopher. I am just a man who has looked into the eyes of animals and seen something that looks back. Something that does not care about my reasons or my cravings or my justifications.

The hen is beautiful. The chicken is tasty. Both are true. Both live in the same chest. Neither one cancels the other.

This is not a conclusion. This is just where I live. In the space between the love and the appetite. Between the memory and the meal. Between the warm lamb in my arms and the mutton on my plate.

I do not know what to do with this. I just know I cannot stop remembering.

And maybe remembering is enough. Maybe the discomfort is the point. Maybe the animals do not need me to stop eating them. Maybe they just need me to see them. Really see them. Before I eat.

I see you, hen with one eye. I see you, lamb who trusted me. I see you, gray bull who leaned into my hands.

I am sorry. And I am grateful. And I am confused.

That is the prayer of a man who loves what he eats and eats what he loves. There is no resolution. There is only the remembering.

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A Small Note for the Reader

You have your own memories. Your own hen. Your own lamb. Your own bull. You know what I am talking about. The animal that looked at you and you looked back and something passed between you that cannot be named.

You probably ate it anyway.

I am not here to judge you. I am here to say: you are not alone in the discomfort. And maybe the discomfort is the only honest place to stand.

Eat. Or do not eat. But do not forget. That is all I ask. Of myself. Of you. Of anyone who has ever held a warm body and then lifted a fork.

The grass grows by itself. The animals live and die. And we live in between, remembering, forgetting, and remembering again.