Hunger

HUNGER IN INDIA Villagers near the city of Hyderabad recently jostled for rice that was being sold by government officials.

SOURCE: New York Times, 18 April 2008

Whether cooking it, eating it, or sharing it, food for me has always been a continuous source of happiness and joy. I love going to restaurants, flipping through food magazines, shopping for little treats at specialty shops; day to day tasks that I and many of my friends engage in for pleasure, without any additional thought. I say, often, that food is always on my mind.

Food is on the rest of the world's mind as well, though for different reasons. Food is on their mind because they are hungry. And I am sure the slight belly grumblings I feel during my morning class, which make me turn my thoughts from physics to the sandwich waiting for me in my locker, are nothing to comparison to the thoughts of someone who has not eaten anything today, and probably won't have anything to eat tomorrow, either.

As a middle-class citizen in this country I am embarrassed by the manifestations of plenty that surround us. Shelves upon shelves of bread at the grocery store. After listening to a recent report on the world deficit of grain on NPR, I went to the QFC and counted. 89 different kinds. And I am not counting the sticky raisin rolls, the pumpkin bread, and the cupcakes piled high in the baking section. A lot of it, I am sure, will end up in the dumpster.

And this is why, when I listen to reports on the radio of men who go without food for days so that their children might have one meal, of families who are slaughtering the last of their animals because they have nothing else to eat (and after that is gone, what will they do?), of people rioting in the streets for rice, I feel a tugging in the vicinity of my heart, but no reaction in my gut. It is the difference between sympathy and empathy.

Hunger is a stranger.