And, if the offended denial of G.M.C. Balayogi is not to be dismissed offhand, what he is finding hard to digest are delicacies he did not savour on the occasion.

If they were served at all, that is, in a village feast in Andhra Pradesh to felicitate a state minister on his triumphant conclusion of three years in office.

The Lok Sabha Speaker has had his share of problems in his political life -- ranging from an examination paper leak episode when he was the state's higher education minister to the more recent row over his choice for the parliamentary post and the dust-and-din situations he has been dealing with ever since in the exalted House.

His present embarrassment is exceptional. He is accused of breaking bread, and sharing less vegetarian fare, with violators of the wild life protection law. Hisdefence, that he participated in the event but without partaking of the food, does not suffice fully to uphold the dignity of his august office. Which is endangered even by association with such a meaty celebration.

The organisers have been at pains to suggest that it is the allegations that are wild. That the controversy is the creation of frustrated political rivals seeking their pound of flesh. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has done right to order a detailed inquiry into the affair, and the expert exercise will hopefully establish the truth that partisan polemics cannot be expected to.

That, however, won't answer the main question that must be asked: what lends the charges the credibility that warrants a chief ministerial interest in the mystery over a menu, that calls for an official investigation of the kind initiated a full month after the feasting?

One obvious answer is the increasing evidence of appetites of a wildly adventurous kind among the rich and the famous. Balayogi is in enviablyexcellent company, even as a man undone by meat, whether as an intake or as an insinuation.

The reference is not to only a remote instance like Lord Buddha, said to have died of meat-induced stomach disorder, but also to the more recent illustration of matinee idol Salman Khan, preceded by the case of of an embassy cook reportedly apprehended in Delhi with a deer bound for the dining table. Popular cookery programmes on the TV may not talk about it, but a wild cuisine is apparently becoming a wish fulfillment.

If varied deer species can't be protected by a law prevailing over the lure of venison, the national-bird status has not saved peacocks and Andhra would seem to have its own Asterixes and Obelixes, if the report to embarrass Balayogi is to be believed, with a partiality for wild boar meat.

What is the solution? Salim Khan, the script-writer, has been urged by a Mumbai court to wield his pen for the preservation of wild life. It is easy indeed to envisage a Bollywood saga of a bare-chested herobusting an underground mafia of poachers with a diabolical don. Can box-office hits, however, save our black bucks?