Saturday 2 June 2018

Pizza and the Village

A plea. To pause, to think ...
This is a story that it aches to put down. And I've been putting off writing it.
As we were walking to the beach Sasi asked what that scooter with a box on it was. Sruthi told him its 'pijja'. I asked her what pijja was and she said it comes on TV. She explained that its bread with something sticky on it and cut raw vegetables and. She said it is very costly and it is not for 'us'.
Shravanthi said that she had tasted it. Then her mother Roopa explained how she had had it. Her husband Seenu was working as a watchman in KFC. In KFC every evening the leftover food is thrown into the wastebin and the workers are not allowed to have any to take away. Shravanthi asked her father if he could not get her some as he worked there. So her father contrived to meet a waiter in the toilet, the only place that did not have CC TV. The waiter pretended to throw a leftover peice from a plate into the waste bin and smuggled that into the toilet where Seenu collected it and brought that to the village for his children. And they tasted the coveted pijja.
When the rich, in a country of deep disparities, indulge in excesses, it creates desire, envy, a deeper sense of poverty. It leads to petty theft and loss of dignity. It hurts many many children, and leaves them feeling inadequate. Each of our actions and choices has repurcussions - and it needs honesty and sensitivity and intelligence to seek and understand these.

24 Comments

  • Sanjay Maharishi
    I love this story. I think you had shared this earlier. It's incredible and compelling. Like the other side of the moon that never gets seen.
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    • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      The side we dont see. Because we dont want to. Because we will have to face all our hypocricies then, and they are not pretty.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Yes its a 2016 post. Will get more valid with each passing year.
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  • Sujan Gangadhar
    What saddens more is, instead of the father explaining to his daughter the ill effects of eating the food from such places, he chose to get it for his daughter. Nothing can beat home cooked food even if it doesn’t have salt or spice.
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    • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      All of us privileged consume blatantly in the faces of the malnourished poor. And the poor children are trapped into that desire. And you expect one single, also deprived, father to break that assualt we have unleaxhed. With his 'explanations' ??
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    • Nikita Gandhi
      Agree with you Aparna Krishnan. We privileged have created this web of desires..A world beyond which where we all seem to be happy. We are not may be but the underprivileged have no way to know and we expect them to give these health reasons...What will a child understand..Children learn by seeing not listening..And we as society have failed all the children from the privileged class to those who are poor.
      I am trying to bring up my son telling him that he is privileged...is ways I can
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      • 3y
    • Chitra Sharan
      In case you haven't seen it, please watch the movie Kakka Muttai. All of us know the Buddhist philosophy, desire is the root cause of all evil, yet I am unable to control my desire for many material things. You expect a poor man, to know about dangers of processed food and tell his child to suppress her desire to 'eat' something that is advertised and marketed so much.
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      • 3y
    • Sujan Gangadhar
      It’s saddens again that there’s a “thick” line of divide between privileged or otherwise which I fail to understand personally.
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      • 3y
    • Nikita Gandhi
      Sujan Gangadhar could u elaborate your difficulty a lil more. Want to understand.
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    • Shashi Joshi
      It is not just we privileged. These kind of disparity was there all along in all societies. But the direct exposure was not there. A poor farmer wasn't feeling bad that Raja Bhoj ate in diamond studded gold plates. Today with advertising, smartphones movies, etc everywhere it is in your face.
      That is even worst.
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      • 3y
    • Sujan Gangadhar
      Nikita Gandhi cutting a long story short, when I was 5 or so, I was told a NO to eateries that i wanted to visit (not that there were many in the cities) by my parents who used to visit me. I grew up with my grand parents who never entered into an eatery joint. My grandfather use to take me to the “poor home” as it was called and where he was for a few years and we used to eat with the boys there. Eat to live was what I was told. I was strictly told not to complain about the taste (no one deliberately spoils the food) and be grateful to God that there’s Food on my plate. If this is privileged or otherwise I leave it to the “beholder”. I tell my daughter the same. To listen or not to, is hers.
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      • 3y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      We walk past the hungry into glass walled hotels. That is the level of insensitivity.
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    • Nikita Gandhi
      What you have shared about your childhood and choices are things that I resonate with. My life being spent in a chawl in mumbai. When I say 'priviledged' I am talking about having an option for choices. Do i acknowledge that? Do I see that if and when I am unable to eat or cook , I do not have to think twice before entering a hotel or a restaurant. 'Priviledged' is not just about money it's about opportunities to make choices. I am assuming you have it. And I may be wrong.
      Your father and grandfather made a conscious decision to make you aware how 'priviledged' you were by various ways, n you seem to be doing same with your children. Me too.
      But there has been as observation that this generation of 'priviledged' seem unaffected about the disparity and do not make an effort to understand it. That is the angst I am sharing here.
      The poor father kind of gave the child a choice to see for herself what it is but through ways where his humanity was violated. This is what we have to look at.
      Just sharing...So.much more is going on within but i put my case to rest...That's what we say isn't it...🙂
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  • Sujan Gangadhar
    It’s saddens again that there’s a “thick” line of divide between privileged or otherwise which I fail to understand personally. I’ve heard how my grandfather was sent to a “poor students home” though being a “privileged”. The gap’s increasing by us tal… 
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  • Mohua Lahiri
    Aparna Krishnan This is such a complex story. I thought about it for the last few days. Should I respond? Shouldn't I? You bring fairly deep level introspection into little incidents. Then I thought I would like to respond.
    There are so many ways of seeing this.
    A little kid wanting to eat something which her father could not afford to buy.
    KFC wasting food (incidentally it would be Dominoes or some other place coz KFC does not make pizzas. But never mind. That is a small thing.) Preferring to throw it away than give it to the people who work there.
    The whole issue of "giving away" left over food vs. "sharing" food that you have so eloquently raised.
    The problem of living in a fractured world divided by huge inequalities. Forging one's sense of ethics in that complex world.
    In this complex world there will always be things you don't have which you would like to have. On one side this fuels the inner desire to achieve something in life. At the other end it leads to covetousness and envy.
    One person has a beautiful mango tree growing in her garden. Another child sees it and wants to taste the mango. Should the child's parent quietly go and pluck a mango for the child? Or pick up the mango that has fallen down?
    Perhaps the parent has seen mangoes that fall down often rotting away. Would that justify the action?
    Even among equals, one person has a mango tree. The other a jackfruit tree. What should the parent do?
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    • 2y
  • Aparna Krishnan
    The questions are hard. Our own privilege makes our position suspect.
    In this reality, in our own compromises, we need to personally and collectively search fopr answers, and forge a path.
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    • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      I have more questions than answers. So I share my questions.
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      • 2y
    • Mohua Lahiri
      They are good questions you have raised. The real question I think you have raised not just here but all through is what is a privilege? Who is privileged? Is the opposite of privilege, deprived?
      And at a much deeper level, who am "I" to give? Do I deserve what I get? That is a much more difficult question. And, the answer is not in renunciation. That is a denial of all privileges, an act of avoidance. That is not an answer for this complex world.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      I offer no answers. My definition of deprivation and privilege is in the mundane plane here - malnourishment on one side, and well above basic needs on the other. That is unconcsiensable.
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    • Mohua Lahiri
      But the issue you have raised is surely not about malnourishment?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      It is virtual malnourishment. Driven home by an obscene disparity. In which process real malnourishment also has a role.
      Yes, the point is vaster than malnourishment, true. And yet it is waged in the world of the deprived and the privileged.
      The issue of a child with a simple car feeling poor compared to a child with a mercedez does not interest me, though there may be parallels.
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      • 2y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Though yes, the latter issue is also part of the whole larger malaise of envy, sense of inadequacy, desire without limits.
      The ideal is a well nourished village, rooted in its sense of simplicity and sharing and contentment.
      But everything about modern grown and development works against a sense of contentment and simplicity !

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  • Shardul B. Vyas
    I feel grateful to have you in my friends list. It is very easy to settle abroad and then start pinpointing unfairness in 'my motherland India', but it is really really hard to face it and do something concrete, at whatever possible level, about it ...
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      we do only a little work in a small village. anyway these are general sharings, of what i see closely. and sometimes acheingly.
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  • Parthasarathy VM
    This aches indeed..
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  • Srividhya Gopalakrishnan
    Aparna Krishnan seriously this aches ..besides self restraint , how do we solve this... we have come really too far... I see a very big chunk of us are not even aware of this and feel it is our right...
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      if i knew what to do, i would not be wasting a minute on FB.
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    • Srividhya Gopalakrishnan
      your writing brings the awareness. changes the perspective.. Seriously when i go to a restaurant ( when there is no choice) , atleast either i avoid or if not avoidable the i remember this
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      • 5y
  • Sanjay Maharishi
    True for every item advertised on tv and elsewhere. In fact to create envy is known in advertising circles as a must. What is the point, they say, if an ad doesn't create envy.
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      The perversion is so deep, that there is a sense of normalcy. And whole sections of sane and simple society are being dragged into this lunatic space of greed and envy and insatiable desire.
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  • Priya Anand
    Every time I read your post it tries to make me a pinch more humble Aparna… you are an inspiration
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      I have been humbled many many times. Living in a community far poorer than me, and steeped in a generosity far vaster than mine. I have little regard for myself having seem myself in the mirror the community held to me, but then as years pass I dont spend too much time worrying about myself anyway.
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  • Afsan Chowdhury
    I prevent myself from using extreme abusive language when I face or read about such situations. Its not just loss of shame but the introduction of violation. My society is not angry, not raging against such crimes. What we really have is an advert culture. We are living a through a terrible history or even worse people without history.
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      yes, these are insensate times. deeply criminal, but so normalized that it is rarely seen as it is.
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      • 5y
    • Afsan Chowdhury
      We shall soon be having the Ramzan or month of fasting for Muslims and the competition for splurging and criminal waste of food and money will begin. Its so shameful and obscene that it's an insult to the faith they follow. Restaurants will stay open… 
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      i see. After the fast, they feast is it ? daily ?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      We call this the kaliyugam. And worse and worst times are promised !! It is said that the time will come when four good people will not be able to stand together and talk.
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      • 5y
    • Afsan Chowdhury
      Aparna Krishnan Yes, the fast begins at sunrise -Sehri- and ends after sunset -Iftar.. You can't also become angry, use bad language, lie etc. What happens here is the sprouting of thousands of shops selling food of every kind. KFC and others will have special .Iftars, roadside shops and every restaurant will do this. Now Dhaka's upper class has found Sheri parties held from 2 to 5 at night. Theologically, such conspicuous consumption is a sin- haram - but to these people everything has to be consumed. I will send you pics of the rich having fun when its time for prayers and moderation.
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      no, please dont. its bad enough seeing people feast in glass walled restauraunts in India, when the poor are on the other side of the glass walls. There is enough perversity which has becomed normalized, and the conspicious and insensitive consumption is only on the rise.
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      • 5y
  • Jataayu B'luru
    There was a very good Tamil movie kaakkaa muttai - Not sure whether you saw or read about it - on the very same theme. It is about the desire of 2 slum children (brothers) to taste Pizza and what follows. The portrayal is quite sensitive and very realistic. It shows the joys and bonding among slum families, even while highlighting the poverty - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaka_Muttai
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  • Anil Gupta
    Answer is not pity but pride in what we eat after day's hard work and often based on more nutritious grains/millets. Don't pity please. Show them
    Literature which points out how obesity has become a problem among pizza eating children; show them research which shows that pizza bread of maida ( fine wheat flour ) is much less nutritious than whole grain bread they eat. No point in wallowing in sorrow when it is actually very good that children don't consume pizza
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      I have no pity towards the poor. I deeply respect their generosity, their culture, their wisdom. I have known them very closely. I only point out how depraved the upper class has become in its obscence consumption. The comment in this, and each post, is on the 'rich'. It is they who need to do their introspection. If they will.
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      • 5y
  • Anil Gupta
    But please show the research I request to local community then the father will not have to beg borrow Or steal pizza
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    • 5y
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