Food
Fasting is good. It makes you appreciate what hunger feels like. And makes you appreciate food and having it.
Whenever a desi mom starts talking about her kid's food habits, weight and likes, I am gripped by a firm desire to disappear. Somehow, there is a competition in proving whose kid is the worst in his eating habits, lowest on weight charts and finicky in food likings.
It makes me think of malnourished children. Of the broken and scarred children in war zones trying to sort through the war atrocities they have witnessed before even being aware of lack of food that is killing them.
I was listening to a talk on NPR of a Medicins Sans Frontieres nurse who was describing her experience in Sudan - of how they help mothers who walk in with children who barely can move, how they have kids as young as four year olds stumble into their clinic - alone.
I don't know what I can do beyond feel the anguish? And maybe do some monetary contributions. Maybe this is the only time I find myself desperately wishing that there is a real God somewhere...
Whenever a desi mom starts talking about her kid's food habits, weight and likes, I am gripped by a firm desire to disappear. Somehow, there is a competition in proving whose kid is the worst in his eating habits, lowest on weight charts and finicky in food likings.
It makes me think of malnourished children. Of the broken and scarred children in war zones trying to sort through the war atrocities they have witnessed before even being aware of lack of food that is killing them.
I was listening to a talk on NPR of a Medicins Sans Frontieres nurse who was describing her experience in Sudan - of how they help mothers who walk in with children who barely can move, how they have kids as young as four year olds stumble into their clinic - alone.
I don't know what I can do beyond feel the anguish? And maybe do some monetary contributions. Maybe this is the only time I find myself desperately wishing that there is a real God somewhere...
Comments
I remember watching this documentary by a lady documentary-maker for NG. She, along with her husband (also a fellow-cameraman) was covering the conditions of the war-struck, disease-stricken inhabitants of an African nation (Rwanda/Sudan?). The documentary goes shot-by-shot strewing gory images of malnourished kids that are no more than just skin hanging over their skeletons. The documentary stops abruptly at one point where the last image is that of a vulture seen perched 2 meters away from a near dead infant, awaiting it's final breath.
The lady said that though her profession demanded her to report incidents 'as is', yet she was in no way prepared for this kind of apathy. The 'human' in her forced her to drop the camera & pick the kid...
This is what humans are capable of doing to each other! It's the same us who can be as sophisticated & considerate as we can be crude & barbaric!
Here is on place where the camera man didn't stop and pick up the kid. One of the most haunting pictures I have ever seen.
http://picasaweb.google.com/devbrat/PulitzerPrize#5032710136853569874