Of course, this is not the first time that this is happening, but the repeated occurrence cannot diminish the outrage and distaste that such incidents leave in the mouth. In India, there is a special significance in being a vegetarian, as followed in the name of religion rather than due to personal choice. A large number of Hindus, Jains and Buddhists are vegetarians, and consider the consumption of non-vegetarian food to be sinful, and something to be avoided (having such a faith is their legal right, and one cannot dispute this). Thus, in India, there are many restaurants and hotels that even call themselves as only vegetarian so that the concept is clear that there is no non-vegetarian food being cooked in the place and hence there is no chance of their being served non-vegetarian food. But what happens when they are in a place where both types of food is served; the place serving them vegetarian food is under a duty to ensure that they get pure vegetarian food and not food that is mixed with non-vegetarian food.
Even if they are served non-vegetarian food by mistake, some of them will dismiss it as a mistake, but for others, the experience can be traumatic, since they have not had non-vegetarian food and to eat it due to somebody’s mistake can be seen as a violation. Now, when you combine this with the way that the railway ministry is run, with late trains, dirty trains, people complaining about food (after all, if the food was good, why would the fairly recent phenomenon of people being able to book food in the trains from outside be off to such a great start ?), and so on. But one would expect that there would be a lot of control in terms of the place where the preparation of food is taking place, and simple mistakes such as mixing non-vegetarian food with vegetarian food be avoided. And yet it happened to this traveler, a Jain gentleman, who found that the vegetarian curry he was eating had bones in it, and then further shocking, the administrative officials, instead of apologizing to him, tried to prevent him from filing a complaint. If this had happened in a restaurant in developed countries, it would have resulted in a lawsuit (link to article):
Jain, a 65-year-old frequent travelling businessman based in Hanumanthnagar in south Bangalore, took the Rajdhani Express from Delhi to Guwahati on September 19. The next day he ordered a vegetarian lunch and was having it. To his horror, he realized he was chewing bones served in the curry. “I couldn’t smell anything because the bones were mixed in the vegetables. I complained to the manager who was serving food in that compartment but he refused to listen. In fact, he blamed me for not having checked the food properly. Later I complained to the pantry car manager and he too argued with me,” he told TOI.
On reaching Guwahati, Jain gathered the media in front of whom the pantry car manager admitted to having served him non-vegetarian food in place of vegetarian food that was ordered. Jain filed a written complaint to the Indian Railway headquarters on Sunday after reaching Bangalore and is awaiting a reply.
Given that the Government and the Railway ministry is trying to change customer opinion of Indian Railways, they would be well advised to ensure that such complaints are processed and responded to, and people can see, that even though mistakes can happen, the authorities are trying to improve conditions rather than trying to push them under the carpet.
