Asad opened the refrigerator door and peered inside. His eyes fell on a huge chocolate cake and some sandwiches, the leftovers from yesterday’s tea.“Oh God! Why am I being punished like this?” He groaned silently.It was the first day of Ramadan and Asad was fasting. He had just returned from school and was feeling ravenous. After dropping his heavy backpack on the bedroom floor, he made a beeline for his favorite spot in the house, the kitchen. But fasting meant no food for at least four more hours. He would have to wait till sunset to break the first fast of the month.Just for a second, Asad felt sorely tempted.“Who would know if I eat a slice of the cake?” he mused. His parents weren’t home, his grandparents wereresting and his baby sister, Fatima was too young to tell tales.“Somebody would know, “a little voice argued inside his heart. “He, who knows everything, since He is our Creator.”Asad slammed the fridge door shut in frustration. He was fourteen and felt ashamed of his momentary weakness. He went to the living roomwhere a maid was spooning Cerelac into Fatima’s little mouth. Fatima gurgled and grinned at her older brother who bent down to give her a hug. Asad looked at the pale yellow concoction that was smeared across her face and swallowed hard. Even Cerelac smelled good at this hour.He flopped down on the sofa in disgust and switched on the television.“Maybe a nice program will take my mind off food for a while,” he thought, aggressively pressing downthe channel buttons on the remote control.He paused at BBC channel where a cute anchorperson was presenting a report. Asad stared at her for a while without registering the news but thensome live images made his attention snap back at the report. Rachel Hayward was talking about intense, widespread poverty and famine in Africa where millions of children perished each year due to hunger and malnutrition.Asad stared at the disturbing pictures of dark brown skeletal children with distended stomachs. Flies hovered around their faces and their naked bodies, as mothers listlessly tried to wave them away. Their misery was writ large on their faces and their empty eyes bore testimony to man’s inured ways.Asad thought with a guilty pang about the uneaten pizza he had thrown away in a fit of temper last night. He had ordered his favorite Chicken Supreme but the delivery boyhad brought some other pizza and would not take it back. Asad had paid for it and just to show the impertinent delivery guy what he thought of his services, had tossed the pizza into the trash can outside his house. It had felt so good at that time but now he felt like a total jerk.He remembered how his grandmother always chided him when he left rice uneaten on his plate that was later scrapped off by the servant and dumped in trashcan. He remembered the lavish meals he and his friends ordered in college canteen and then discarded because they could not eat a bite more. If excess, extravagance and waste werecrimes, then he was guilty of each one of them.He changed the channels once again and put on MTV. He had a huge crush on Beyonce but after witnessing the BBC report, the music seemed too loud, too cheerful and even obscene. He switched the television off.“What is wrong with me today?” He thought uneasily. “It must be the lack of food that is making me so restless.” He glanced at the stately golden clock adorning the living room wall. Only twenty minutes had passed and he still had more than three and a half hours to kill.“I’ll go to Bilal’s house.” He decided, thinking about his friend’s house across the street. “Maybe a few rounds of computer games will improve my mood.”When he stepped out of his house, he saw was a couple of dirty, bedraggled children foraging through the trash can. The older kid, who seemed about 5 yrs old, dragged a piece of dried chapatti out of the refuse heap and brushed away blackened mango peels from it. He broke it in two and offered the other half to his younger sister. Asad stoodrooted to the spot in horror.“Hey. Don’t eat that. It’s terribly dirty and probably mouldy too,” he shouted but the duo quickly crammed the hard chapatti into their hungry mouths and scampered off.“Why had I never noticed such things before?” he wondered.Asad had never been hungry in his entire life so poverty, deprivation, and hunger were concepts that he had never thought about.If the home cooked meal was not to his liking, he always ordered his favorite foods from upscale restaurants and had them delivered home. He had a creditcard, a gift from his father on his fourteenth birthday and he used it forlavish meals whenever he wished.Now hunger due to the obligatory fast was forcing him to look at the plight of the less fortunate and the more he saw, the more disturbed he felt.He crossed the street and saw a construction crew at work. Bilals’ father was having a wing added to his already imposing residence. Asad paused to admire the skill of an old carpenter who was busy smoothing a rectangular block of wood. Wood shavings littered the floor around him.“Are you fasting, babaji?” He asked respectfully.The old man looked up and wiped the perspiration from his brow.“Aye, son. Work is no excuse for not fasting,” he replied.Asad could not imagine fasting and then working in the relentless summer afternoon heat. He looked around at the laborers, mason, and brick layers working in a rhythmic method.“What do you eat for iftaar?” he asked out of curiosity, referring to theevening meal. He imagined the lavish food that got prepared in their kitchen everyday. It took their chef at least two hours to put together an afternoon tea.The old man smiled,” Whatever Allah provides for us, son. He is Merciful and Most Gracious.”
No comments:
Post a Comment