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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14697367.htm

 

Vegetarian bias worries meat eaters in Mumbai

BUYERS CHALLENGING REAL ESTATE TREND

By Ramola Talwar Badam

Associated Press

MUMBAI, India - It's not a question of 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 non-vegetarian 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 about 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, formerly known as Bombay, 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

grocery stores 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

non-vegetarian items now,'' said Neelam Ahuja, owner of the K-value supermarket.

``Many customers don't like non-veg, so we stopped stocking it.''

 

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 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

Bombay.''

 

 

 

I don't wanna be no war hero

Don't want a movie made about me

I don't wanna be no war hero

Just get away from the madness I see

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