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a small pond. They grow fish; just as you grow other things, they grow fish. Naturally, their houses smell fishy. And it was because of this situation....
When the British empire took over India, Calcutta was their first capital. All the Bengalis had to be the first clerks, the first bureaucracy, and they were all smelling of fish. That's why the Britishers started calling them babu; babu means one who smells. You can say "Bengali babu" and there is no problem, but you cannot say "Punjabi babu" -- that does not suit. With "Punjabi," babu does not suit at all -- "Punjabi babu"? It is impossible -- "Punjabi" and "babu"? The Bengali is a babu, and in his shadow even the Bihari has become a babu, but there it stopped.
And it is strange; because the powerful British empire was calling Bengalis "babus" -- it was a condemnatory word; ba means with, bu means smell. Even a condemnatory word became a very respectable word because the powerful people were using it. So now when you want to show respect to somebody you call him babuji -- "Babu Rajendra Prasad." You have not left out even the president of India; you call him "babu".
As time changes.... Today we cannot accept, no sensitive person can accept that a man who was thought to be a reincarnation of God can be a meat eater. It simply looks awkward, embarrassing.
After Mahavira and Gautam Buddha, values changed so dramatically. They had to change, because these two persons lived a vegetarian life and proved that any man who has love in his heart, compassion, cannot be a meat eater. And at the heights of consciousness, you cannot imagine that a man continues to eat meat -- something is wrong.
In every age, man has to define what is good, what is bad.
You never think that Rama obeying his father -- a dying man, under the influence of a young wife.... In the first place, to have four wives was wrong. Then, even at the point of death the man has not the courage to say no to his young wife. Such a henpecked husband! For no reason at all he orders Rama to go to the forest for fourteen years. And this was a value in those days, obedience. Rama is respected for centuries because he obeyed
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