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Journalism of Courage
The worst is perhaps round the corner and we are about to enter that age when our hunger will be more than what the global larder can provide for, when a full meal will make the fortunate feel guilty, not satiated.
The grim textbook accounts of past instances of want and savagery often fail to mention the individuals who worked out their own method of coping with those times, or the quixotic visions that emerged when they looked at events through their own prism. My great grandmother lived through the Bengal Famine of 1943 as well as World War II, and her abiding complaint after surviving these two near-apocalyptic events was about the great social levelling in everyday wear that ensued when she was forced to procure the same saree as her maid from the ration shop. Which is not to say that the lady lacked in graciousness or fellow feeling. On an evening out with her female relatives to enjoy a “biscope” (movie), she had kept her veil drawn down to her chin through the screening, unable to enjoy the dramatic action. “That was in deference to the men folk on the screen (the actors),” would be her dignified response even years later.
Her trusted right-hand man — a farm labourer adoringly named “Gandhi” by his parents — also managed to survive the tribulations of the age. His fondest wish was to expose his children to the miracle called “ice”. On a visit to town, he bought a block from an ice factory, getting it neatly wrapped in his towel, insulated with sawdust. After a rather long day, he decided to sleep over at a relative’s place. He arrived safe and sound to his children the next day, with the miracle of a wet towel, soiled with sawdust.
The empowering nature of knowledge will ensure that our minds will be spared a trip back to those times, even if imbalances in food supply make us step backwards. We will never manage such a distance from reality in order to survive. Through our own prism, we will laugh at their quaint innocence, at the inanity of their firm convictions, forgetting that those who can look through can also be looked at.
