Leaf us alone, say Mumbai's growing vegetarian enclaves

Revolted at having to live alongside meat-eaters, rich vegetarians in Mumbai are quietly creating vegetarian enclaves so that they need never be assaulted by the nefarious odour of animal flesh being cooked in a neighbour's kitchen.

'My aunt made an offer for a flat in Byculla last year,' says design student Rajshri Navalkar, 25. 'The next thing we know, the property dealer asked her if she was vegetarian because the housing society only allowed vegetarians to move in, and she's not.'

Housing complexes and whole neighbourhoods in India's most cosmopolitan city are going vegetarian. Even on Malabar Hill, where foreigners and Indian millionaires live in sprawling mansions, several grocery shop owners refuse to stock meat products.

Drive down Marine Drive - Mumbai's Champs Elysee - as it curves around the Arabian Sea and for a long stretch there are no restaurants serving meat, fish or eggs. Nearly all the old fish and seafood restaurants are gone. Pizza Hut serves only vegetarian pizzas. Lest anyone think otherwise, it has 11 neon signs saying '100 per cent vegetarian'.

Leading the enforcement of this unofficial meat fatwa are some of the city's businessmen - diamond merchants, traders, industrialists, garment exporters - who are determined to live alongside people with similar beliefs.

Two years ago, Jati Chedda, 32, moved into Ramkrupa Flats in south Mumbai with her husband. All the occupants of the 120 flats are vegetarian. 'We detest the smell of meat being cooked,' says Ms Chedda. 'Even omelettes give off a disgusting aroma. My family and I don't want meat-eaters in any building we live in.' Many of the people who want to live in vegetarian zones come from the neighbouring state of Gujarat and are Hindus or Jains, a religious minority that abides by the principle of ahimsa, or non-violence. Jains make up only 1 per cent of the Indian population but, like Ms Chedda, are generally well-off.