You know someone's bound to ask you about your favourite dishes and that conversation can go many ways. But, before it diverses, one of the most common questions that can be asked is, are you a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian? The answer can be either of the two, but in my case, it's a bit different. You see I eat vegetables but not all the meat and there lies the dilemma. 

One can say that I have a sensitive nose, a sharper sense of smell. This makes it difficult for me to have any kind of meat that has not been prepped with a different mix of spices and not barbequed. But even then, I can have the Panner Butter Chicken that is not barbequed and I don't mind having Shawarma's at all. I cannot stand the odour of the meat, it is so pungent to my nose that I have a gag reflex every time I smell it. In my entire years of life so far, I have never once, voluntarily tasted any kind of meat or fish based curries that was prepared using just chilli powder, garam masala, turmeric powder, and whatever kinds they put in there. Folks, my life has not been easy living with a family of meat-lovers. Even worse I cannot handle fish at all! 

Once my uncle brought a cooked fish home and asked me to put it in the microwave. I opened the aluminium foil covering it and saw that it was a whole fish - with its head intact, and with eyes wide open that was staring into my soul. I had to close my eyes and threw it in the microwave as reuested, but the trouble came after. You see, the glass plate in our microwave goes round and round, and when the timer was switched off and I opened it, the fish was staring at me. That freaked me out and I refused to take it out of the oven. Eventually my uncle had to get the fish from the microwave by himself. I am that bad at handling meat of any kind.

Even with my questionable fear of fish, I love having prawns. The catchphrase being that they need to be cooked by my mother's recipe using ginger-garlic paste, otherwise I would not have them. Moreover, if my prawns were kept near other cooked fish, I would not have it because the smell has transferred from the non ginger-garlic fish to my ginger-garlic fish, and now it smells like non ginger-garlic paste fish. It's confusing I know, but hey, you started this so now you need to finish this. Who even invented the ginger-garlic paste!?

You might wonder why my food-identity is important for me. But let me ask you this, what am I supposed to answer when people ask what kind of foods they need to prepare for me? I mean, imagine myself sitting on my seat in the aeroplane and the host(ess) comes to me with the menu and asks whether I enjoy a suspicious looking dal curry or a mutton pilaf. What am I supposed to say then? I will have a bit of both!? I am sorry, but I was told that life does not work that way. What about the times that I need to attend a buffet? Should I choose veg or non-veg?

The last time someone popped the question, I told them I was a virus. Yeah, no, you read that right - a virus. Why you may ask, but the answer is simple. Viruses are neither living or non-living, according to science they are treading on that thin line between the two. Similar to virus, I am neither a complete vegetarian nor am I complete non-vegetarian, I am trudging the thin line between the two too. But human beings cannot be a virus apparently. My question is, why not? We cause enough harm to the environment to be called the 'human virus'. The degradation of the environment due to the human virusasization. That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

So am I vegetarian or a non-vegetarian? For all that I know I might just be a picky eater. :)