About Sunny

Sunny Tripathy, a fifteen year-old (2004), living in Pleasanton with his family of four, has been a strict vegan for more than a year now. He never ate red meat, but he used to eat chicken and rarely fish. Products such as milk, eggs, and cheese were abundant in his previous diets.

While at a market during his trip to India, he witnessed live animal slaughter. He had never thought about meat before. �It�s just served on a plate, and you start eating,� he said. Sunny also blamed the meat�s appearance for his ignorance. �The meat is all clean and cut; it looks more like a vegetable than blood.� Sunny�s eyes filled with tears that day as the gruesome images of screaming animals haunted him repeatedly. He was aghast with himself, furious for ever eating meat. �An animal�s life is just as precious as ours,� he says. He finds sympathy for animals when he looks into their eyes.

�They�re just so innocent, so defenseless.� Sunny says he is eternally grateful to his grandparents Manoranjan and Chandrabati Hota for demonstrating the importance of life. �If my grandparents hadn�t taken me to the market that day, I would have continued this heinous meat diet. My grandmother has always been the strictest vegetarian. I never understood or agreed with her philosophy until now. And every time I think of her, I am overflowed with more respect and love for her.� Ever since, Sunny has left meats, eggs, cheese, gelatin-containing foods, carmine-containing foods, and more. He feels this was the best decision he had ever made. Sunny was an overweight big kid, up till the age of fourteen. At the age of fourteen and a half, standing 5 feet 7 inches tall, Sunny weighed about one-hundred fifty-six pounds. It was that summer, that he left meat, and by November of 2004, just after turning fifteen, Sunny stood at 5 feet 9 inches, weighing only one-hundred thirty-five pounds. �I could never control myself,� he said, �I would always eat those cookies and chocolates. But after giving up eggs, cheese, and meat, I feel good avoiding those fattening and unhealthy foods.�

Sunny is a religious and joyful young man. Sunny speaks Oriya, Hindi, English, French, Chinese, and is in the process of learning Russian and Bengali. Apart from being his school�s Badminton coach, and president, he also will work at Clubsport as an Indian dance teacher. Sunny loves to cook, especially with chocolate and fruits. With good grades, Sunny participates in most school clubs and activities. He plays an ethnic Indian instrument known as the Tabla. Sunny is a fantastic dancer, and has one numerous awards in competitions. Sunny has played small roles in Hollywood films such as Bee Season with Richard Gere and other commercials. He is a great actor with a wonderful sense of humor. Though a big, exercising, man � meat can make him cry. �I don�t care what it does to my health. I will never take the life of an innocent animal to benefit my own.� Sunny also refused various vitamin supplements that contained animal products. He claims he doesn�t want any creature to ever feel pain. �Let�s love life, not harm it��

�Look deep into an animal�s eyes, exchange places. Your life becomes as vulnerable as theirs, and their�s as precious as yours. Now whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? Now smile if you believe they deserve to live, for they are us, and we are them.� � Unknown

�But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.� --Plutarch