Hunger. The word gives me a rush of memories because it is a feeling of discomfort. And ask me not how often that does happen – the misery. The messes of adulthood never get easier or better. Tomorrow is never better than what today already is. There is only more, and most of us learn that the hard way. ‘Living through it’ than ‘waiting for it’ is the supreme mantra of life.
I don’t think hunger is the feeling of skipping a meal. I don’t think hunger is having only one meal in an entire day either. A large part of the population skips one meal as a planned activity, and another has only one because that is all they can afford.
I don’t think hunger is on your special day, eating one late meal alone with a burst of tears. I don’t think hunger is the feeling that won’t let you work. I don’t think hunger is starving as a consequence of bad decisions. I don’t think hunger is the pressure that won’t let you eat. I don’t think hunger is that extreme craving to pick up from the garbage can and eat. I don’t think hunger is the feeling of nothing-else-matters. I don’t think hunger is tears that you cannot talk about. I don’t think hunger is that which does not allow you to sleep because there is nothing in kitchen and nothing you had. I don’t think hunger is knowing you don’t have a kitchen. I don’t think hunger can be talked about. I don’t think hunger is a game and has a name.
You ask me why and how I justify this? Because I have lived it all, and as I have survived through them all, I have this feeling that hunger must definitely be more than this.