{"id":1603,"date":"2011-12-12T18:37:50","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2011-12-12T18:44:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:14:11","slug":"the-hungry-hands-that-feed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/the-hungry-hands-that-feed\/","title":{"rendered":"The hungry hands that feed"},"content":{"rendered":"
From Eshla:<\/div>\n
When I see my dinner plate, I see stories of injustice.<\/p>\n

I love good food as much as anyone else. \u00a0And I love rustic food–hearty, soulful, made with care. \u00a0The towers of exotic ingredients, piled onto a grand white plate, served at an exorbitant price in a high end restaurant make little sense to me. \u00a0For when I see a plate, I don\u2019t just see food, I see the stories behind it – the hands that sowed the seeds, the hands that harvested the crop, the hands that cultivated it with care. \u00a0And I think of those hands – did they get their fair share?<\/p>\n

One of the great ironies that I\u2019ve never understood is that of farming. \u00a0Why is it that those who grow our food have so little to eat themselves? \u00a0Why is it that those who feed others often don\u2019t have enough to feed their families? \u00a0Why is it that those who harvest that crop don\u2019t get to share it with their family or community? \u00a0Rather, the best of it is exported to distant locales, to people who\u2019ve never met that farmer, who\u2019ve never visited his paddy, who\u2019ve never seen his aged feet dipped in the wet earth as he tends to his rice?<\/p>\n

Our affinity for global tastes has meant that so much of what\u2019s grown never stays in the community. \u00a0Instead, its sifted, packaged, and shipped many miles away to be consumed on foreign plates at unknown dinner tables. \u00a0So much of the story is the lost; so much of our connection to the Earth is gone; so much of our understanding of food is connected simply to taste.<\/p>\n

If only we understood what goes into growing a bushel of wheat, a sack of potatoes, an acre of vegetables, we would prize it more, give it the love it deserves, and respect the Earth for its offering. \u00a0Yet, around the world, in countries rich and poor, I see the well-to-do waste their food. \u00a0And I always wonder if they think of the toil, the love, the hardship that went into producing it. \u00a0Perhaps, that\u2019s the flaw of our world today. \u00a0While we are increasingly interconnected, we are also disconnected. \u00a0We don\u2019t know the faces behind our meals. \u00a0We don\u2019t the hands behind our produce. \u00a0We don\u2019t know the hardship behind each dinner.<\/p>\n

Traveling through India, when you get past the globalized metros, where food is in abundance for many, where growing bellies are common, where overeating is the cause of disease, you see another India that still works hard, tilling the Earth, for their daily meal. \u00a0During a recent venture to the inner corners of Punjab, I got to see the true beauty of Vaisakhi. \u00a0Known as a time to celebrate the harvest, we gather together, cook, eat, and share each other company\u2019s in thanks for another harvest. \u00a0But, we do little of the physical work.<\/p>\n

The endless fields of gold, shining in the sun, are picturesque. \u00a0But look a little closer, and you see a man, elderly, with a thin, sickly figure, chopping away at the stalks of wheat, piling it into stacks, working quickly to beat the rain. \u00a0Dark, foreboding clouds are in the distance, with the capacity to ruin that man\u2019s months of labor. \u00a0Too much rain and the crop spoils. \u00a0It\u2019ll spoil before it even reaches the mill. \u00a0\u00a0So, he works rapidly. \u00a0His scrawny body doesn\u2019t seem equipped for this speed and ardor. \u00a0But he keeps going. \u00a0And I wonder, what fills his plate at the end of the day? \u00a0Even if his crop survives the downpours, how much of it will he reap, how much of it will he share with his children? \u00a0And yet, here I am, being fed endlessly, paratha after paratha. I certainly don\u2019t mind. \u00a0It\u2019s a luxurious feast for me. \u00a0But at what cost?<\/p>\n

Why is it that we produce enough food to feed each other yet it gets distributed so unevenly? \u00a0Why is it that we go to the market and keep looking for lower prices? \u00a0How much lower can the prices go? \u00a0How much less can we pay for the hard labor of the farmer? \u00a0These are complex, contentious questions with even more complicated answers.<\/p>\n

Recently, I attended a luncheon held by a group of community leaders. \u00a0They were meeting to determine how to distribute their funds to local charities. \u00a0Who should get what and how much- \u00a0that was their agenda. \u00a0One charity they were looking at provided food to the homeless and the needy in the community. \u00a0They were quite keen on supporting this cause as it\u2019s the holiday season and everyone deserves a nice meal. \u00a0But as they tallied up the numbers, divided up the total, and wrote the checks, they pushed aside their plates to a corner of the table, plates which had half-eaten rolls of bread, small pieces of meat, and forgotten potatoes and vegetables.<\/p>\n

Even while doing good deeds, they forgot. \u00a0Just cleaning your plate is a good deed. \u00a0Just sharing that plate is a good deed. \u00a0But, strangely, they forgot. \u00a0Or perhaps they don\u2019t realize it. \u00a0They\u2019re accustomed to the abundance. \u00a0They know it\u2019ll be their tomorrow.<\/p>\n

In visiting a school designed for children of the poor in Punjab, I happened to arrive at lunch time. \u00a0So, I got a taste of their day – literally. \u00a0The children were being served dal and two thin chapatis. \u00a0The dal was watery, more liquid, less lentils. \u00a0The chapatis were like air for a starved stomach, so light. \u00a0And, ironically, both were served on a large thali. \u00a0\u00a0Yet before eating their meal, the children were taught how to say a prayer of thanks. \u00a0And they did – with great dignity. \u00a0And then they dove in. \u00a0After just a few minutes, I saw one child cleaning his plate – licking it literally. \u00a0He wanted every morsel. \u00a0He couldn\u2019t have been older than 7. \u00a0He put the thali at an angle, stationed it in his mouth, and slurped the remaining bits of dal, drinking it carefully to not let any waste. And then he licked the plate.<\/p>\n

Just a few metres away from where he sat, the school teachers had put together a little garden, sowing seeds for a few basic vegetables. \u00a0The children were taught how to take care of it. \u00a0They had labeled the rows, written down when they watered it last, and categorized the vegetables by variety. \u00a0They\u2019d done it with their hands.<\/p>\n

These were the children of those have little or nothing. \u00a0But they knew where their food came from. \u00a0And they savored every bite that they received.<\/p>\n

Why are we, those who are given such abundance, so disconnected from our bounty? \u00a0Why do we not treasure it? \u00a0Why do we not allocate enough to the hands that grow it for us? \u00a0Why do we waste so much, simply because it doesn\u2019t suit our liking? \u00a0Why are there such harsh paradoxes in our world?<\/p>\n

These are not easy questions. \u00a0But if more of us asked them, we would be more mindful of our meals – of the resources they consume in getting them to the table, of the people whose lives feature on each plate.<\/p>\n

As the Buddhist teachings tell us, we ought to be more mindful in our lives. \u00a0Be more mindful of what\u2019s presented on your plate. \u00a0Eat it with respect, not greed. \u00a0Eat it with love, not in haste. \u00a0For the hands who grew it, may not have the chance to do the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Eshla: When I see my dinner plate, I see stories of injustice. I love good food as much as anyone else. \u00a0And I love rustic food–hearty, soulful, made with care. \u00a0The towers of exotic ingredients, piled onto a grand white plate, served at an exorbitant price in a high end restaurant make little sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe hungry hands that feed - Shekhar Kapur<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/the-hungry-hands-that-feed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The hungry hands that feed - Shekhar Kapur\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Eshla: When I see my dinner plate, I see stories of injustice. 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