Mumbai meat eaters being left out in cold
Joanna Slater
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 26, 2003 12:00 AM
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1026bombay26.html
BOMBAY - Amar Khamkar thought he had found the perfect apartment for his parents in a new building on a quiet lane near his father’s spice shop. He looked at a model apartment and discussed the price with the salesman. Things were looking good until the agent asked, “Is your family vegetarian?”
“I was shocked,” Khamkar, 28, said, sitting behind a pile of dried red chili peppers and jars of chutney in his father’s store. “What did that matter?”
Quite a lot, as it turned out. The agent told Khamkar, who had been raised on fish and chicken, to forget about buying an apartment in the building: For religious reasons, it was reserved for people who don’t eat meat.
Movement growing
A number of buildings, old and new, in the wealthiest precincts of this teeming city of more than 12 million are going vegetarian and are enforcing an unofficial ban on meat eaters. Since cows are sacred to Hindus, most of India’s 1 billion citizens don’t eat beef, but this is far from a nation of vegetarians. Mutton, chicken and fish are eaten in many parts of India. In Bombay, on the west coast, seafood is a favorite, particularly a pungent dried fish whimsically known as Bombay Duck.
In Bombay, however, there is also a small but influential minority of strict vegetarians. Many are prosperous traders, diamond merchants and property developers originally from the neighboring state of Gujarat, home of Mahatma Gandhi and some of India’s most exacting vegetarians. Many are adherents of Jainism, an ancient faith based on the principle of ahimsa, or non-violence. India has about 3.4 million Jains. The observant do not eat meat, eggs or root vegetables, such as onions or carrots, that have been ripped from the soil.
When ancient asceticism meets up with modern real-estate markets, the result can cause heartburn. Cooking smells, for one thing, are an impediment to integration. “On the one hand, you can mix with other people,” says a father of two who lives in a vegetarian building and asked not to be identified. “But if you do, you’re going to have the smell and you can’t stand it.”
Willing to pay extra
Vegetarians are often willing to pay a premium for an environment in harmony with their religious beliefs and no-meat lifestyle. “There’s an excellent market for vegetarian buildings,” said Sunil Bajaj, a Bombay broker who endorses the concept. “It’s as simple as having a non-smoking area. People want pure veg areas, also.”
Sometimes the food fight becomes public. In 2001 when restaurant tycoon Sanjay Narang opened an outlet in Bombay serving meat and vegetable-stuffed Indian breads called parathas, it caused a stink. The fast-food place, called Roti, was on the ground floor of a building where more than 90 percent of the tenants are vegetarian. A Jain temple occupied a prominent place at the rear of the property.
Narang says the residents of the 14-story building would spit and throw pebbles on customers entering the restaurant. They put up banners condemning it for its insensitivity to Jainism and held a demonstration outside blocking the entrance. At one point, the restaurant had a police van sit outside to prevent further incidents. “Of course, a police van outside a restaurant scares even more people away,” Narang said. The number of customers dropped to about 100 a day from 250, and Narang decided to close at the end of last year. It was a “nightmarish experience,” he said.
Pankaj Jhaveri, a Jain and longtime building resident, says the problem was that religious leaders would not visit the temple because of the restaurant. A jewelry merchant by trade, Jhaveri adds that no one forced Narang to shut down and that the new tenant - a coffee shop that does not serve meat - is very popular with people in the building.