HUNGER

Twice every year, through the festival of Navratri, my mother would fast for seven days. On the eighth day, she'd make a wonderful feast to serve innocent, little gluttons worshipped as Goddesses. When I was nine, I accepted my sister's challenge to keep a fast for a day in pursuit of emulating my mother secretly. It was hard. Harder than I had imagined. That day, I ate an awful lot. I ate more than I would on a normal day. Well in  my defence, the legitimate fasting food was delicious! That day, I also realized what Hunger felt like.

 Hunger was an amusing little feeling. A rather strange stimulus I must say. It's like it has a mind of its own. It got hold of me in peculiar situations, only to make them more awkward. Awkward enough to not be easily forgotten. Like the rumbling sound my intestines unintentionally made in that solemn lecture of economics. Like the time I couldn't study for my exam the entire night due to paucity of  midnight snacks. Like the night there was no night mess.

Well... Hunger. Strikes. Hard.

Hunger, was the emotion felt, when I was so broke.. even poha was out of my league. Hunger, was what reminded me of home, more often than anything else... every afternoon and night, when mess food was gulped down. Mother, I miss the love you added to food. An ingredient they don't ever serve (although they don't serve kadhai paneer either) but I hope to savour the magic your hands create really soon again.

We fought a callous war, Hunger and I. It played the enemy, and I, the brave knight. Every day was a new battle. Every day I would strive to reach the mess and defeat Hunger. Lethargy and Sleep, Hunger's allies would sometimes get the best of me. I did lose hope occasionally, but I never surrendered. Never gave in to egg, or chicken or even gravy for that matter. 

But what about the world fighting the same war?

We are so proud of the great evolution of human beings: we've defeated Leprosy and Small Pox, Plague and Cholera, even man made demons like Environmental Pollution... and yet, every 10 seconds, Hunger kills a child. I keep reminding Hunger that defeat is inevitable for the wrong. That one day things would change. And that any morsel of food, no matter what the country that wheat grew in, the colour of the tiffin box, the name of the restaurant or the company that produced the tinned can, every morsel of food had what it took to fight Hunger.

I have never been able to go without food for twelve hours, although I've tried fasting a lot of times. I wonder how women do that on karva chauth and other festivals for an entire day. I wonder how one-ninth of the world population manages to do that every single day of their lives.

Indeed, Hunger has had its victories in the past and famines are an incorruptible truth that has smeared our history; but now, each one us must stand to let history not repeat itself, to fight battles for those who are not so tough as yet.

Well this is me signing off, the dinner's waiting. I'm going to eat a whole plate of food and crib about the bad taste like I do everyday, and so will you. I know. But before you begin eating your next meal, your next morsel, just think about the people out there who won't have one. 

Just saying, there's no harm in feeling thankful :)