Why are we Vegetarians??????????

Narayanan got settled in Brussels 1 year back and now he has brought his family from India. He has a son, Ravi, who is a studious 4 year old boy. Today is Ravi's first day at school. Narayanan was anxiously waiting outside the school gate to pick him up from the school.

The bell ran at 3.00 p.m. after two minutes all the kids started rushing out of the school doors. Narayanan saw Ravi running towards him. The moment Narayanan knelt down, took Ravi into his arm and hugged him tightly. Narayanan brushed Ravi's hair and carried him towards the car. They both settled down in the car and fastened their seat belts.

Narayanan: How was your first day at school??? Did you like the school????
Ravi: Appa the school is too big unlike the school in Chennai.... I played in the biggggggg play ground and played...played and played. Teachers are so kind to me....They always smile........I played see-saw with Little Mark.
Narayanan: Hmmmmmmm..... good. What did you learn?
Ravi: Appa today they dint teach me anything. They allowed us to play all the time
Narayanan: That is good... did you eat all the chapattis that mom gave you.
Ravi: phuuuuuuuu... I ate only one. Little Mark ate the other two and I ate his food
Narayanan: What did he bring???? [With a puzzled face]
Ravi: He got something....a..a...a..a.. Chicken!!!!!
Narayanan: Did you eat chicken #$!@#%^!&$#@ its non-vegetarian. How many times did I tell you not to take food from others and now see you have eaten a Chicken?... Oh my god we don’t eat meat.
Ravi: [with an innocent sad look] what is non-vegetarian appa?
Narayanan: Food that is made after killing animals is called non-vegetarian food and food that are made from plants are called vegetarian food. It is sinful to kill living things and eat. In our family we don’t have the practice of eating the food made out of killed living things.
Ravi: But Appa you have also told me that plants are also living things. You also said pulling a plant is like killing it. I don’t see any difference between killing a chicken or plucking vegetable from the plant as both equals killing a living thing.Then why are we Vegetarians?

Just then Narayanan realized that his son was right in a way but he was forced to think a logical answer to justify his sons question.

Few days later, one day morning Ravi plucked some flowers from the plant his mother grew in the balcony and gave it to his mother for the Pooja. Later on the same day Ravi got a small puppy home, which has lost its leg in an accident. Narayanan and Ravi took the puppy to the doctor and nursed it. They decided to inhabit the puppy in their home.

Two years later, one day Ravi was sitting in their balcony and was reading. The puppy was playing next to him near the pot of flowers which was there for 3 years. Narayanan just then came into the balcony and sat near Ravi

Narayanan: Do you remember once you asked why we are Vegetarians?
Ravi: [gave a puzzled look and nodded]
Narayanan: This plant has been here since the day i moved into this apartment. Since then on every Sunday we used to pluck flowers from this plant to offer it to the god. The flower keeps growing even if we pluck. But if you have noticed this puppy came two years back with a lost leg. Till today its leg has not grown. It still suffers in pain. When you kill animals or birds it does an irreparable damage to them. But plants keep growing even if we pluck a portion of them. We don’t kill plants we only take a portion of it and allow them to grow more..... This is why we are vegetarians. Son I leave it to you to make your own choices. But try choosing the one which causes minimum damage.