Hindu Sues for Wrongly Being Served a Beef Burrito

A devout Hindu living in Oxnard is suing a Ventura Taco Bell for serving him a beef burrito rather than the bean burrito he ordered.

That one bite of beef violated Mukesh K. Rai’s most fundamental religious principle, causing him emotional distress, as well as medical expenses and loss of wages, he claimed in his suit filed this week.

“Eating the cow, it was a really devastating experience,” said Rai, reached at his home Friday. “So much so that I had to go to a psychiatrist. I went to a doctor. I couldn’t sleep.”

Indeed, Rai said he has already had to travel to England to perform a religious purification ceremony with Hindu masters.

And in March he will travel to India for the ultimate purification: bathing in the waters of the Ganges River.

Rai wants the restaurant chain to pay for his pilgrimage, as well as his other costs. Taco Bell officials would not comment on the suit filed in Ventura County Superior Court.

According to the complaint, Rai ordered a bean burrito from the Taco Bell across from Ventura High School on April 27.

“He clearly repeated the order twice so that he would be ensured of not receiving a burrito with meat,” the suit states.

“When he received his order he took a bite, and after chewing it he realized to his horror that it was a meat burrito,” the complaint continued.

His Santa Barbara-based lawyer, Joel Crosby, said the case has larger implications.

“Although we don’t have a large Hindu population, we do have a lot of vegetarians,” Crosby said.

Taco Bell, he said, should take the suit very seriously.

“What about the mental impact here?” Crosby said. “This is the equivalent of eating his ancestors.”

Rai, who runs the pharmacy at the Thrifty Payless in Carpinteria, says he has suffered great anguish as a result of the Taco Bell incident.

But what really galls him is that after he bit into the beef burrito, Taco Bell refused to give him a refund.

Indeed, although they offered to exchange it for a bean burrito, they would not pay him the difference in price between the more expensive beef burrito, and the cheaper bean one, he said.

“They say, ‘What’s the big deal? You ate meat,’ ” Rai said.

But it is a very big deal for Rai.

In India the cow is a sacred animal, considered a mother to everyone, he said. Most Hindu prayers end by giving reverence to various gods, and the cow, he added.

Rai said Taco Bell initially showed interest in addressing his concerns, but so far has taken no action.

“I’m a minority,” he said. “They continue to treat this as a trivial thing, but Indians are about a billion of the world’s population, and about 80% to 90% of them are Hindus.”