With baby chicks perched on his hand, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety star and heartthrob Kartik Aaryan appears in a new campaign for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India that proclaims, “Chicks Love a Vegetarian.” He has been appointed the new face of PETA India. “It only took one video of animals suffering and dying in the meat industry to convince me to go vegetarian,” says Aaryan. “The kindest thing anybody can do for cows, pigs, chickens, and all animals is to stop eating them.”
This campaign is shot by ace photographer Errikos Andreou, his hair was styled by Bashir for Hakim Aalim, and his make-up was done by Waheed Ahmed Shaikh.
As PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – reveals in its video exposé “Glass Walls”, chickens killed for food are often shackled upside-down before their throats are slit. Cows and buffaloes are crammed into vehicles in such large numbers that their bones often break before they’re dragged off to the slaughterhouse, and pigs are stabbed in the heart as they scream. On the decks of fishing boats, fish suffocate or are cut open while they’re still alive.
Aaryan joins Anushka Sharma, Shahid Kapoor and many other celebrities who’ve teamed up with PETA India to promote healthy, humane meat-free meals.