Picture Worth Thousand Words: One Naan and Two Pakoras.

A picture is worth a thousand words they say. I was always curious to find out if that was true, well it actually is true.

There are several angles to look at this picture, aren't there. It shows you different feelings as well, emotions, they way humans function, what they are, what they go through. Everyone acts their own way.

What is it here in this picture? Just one naan and two pakoras and several people. You know what it is.

Let's look a little deeper. Give it a closer look and see, feel and learn if we can. 

Desperation is the first feeling, on the face of  the girl with her hands ready to take her one time meal, or perhaps the only meal of the day.  It isn't her turn yet but it is about time, we don't know for how long she has been hungry, minutes, hours, days? She wants to eat.

Then you see happiness. In the eyes of this young girl who will finally get to eat something, we don't know for how long she has been standing there, waiting. She is there, she finally has something to eat. She must be thinking about a good calm sleep, or maybe happiness of no hunger pans.

Then there is anxiety. They define anxiety as a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. He knows he is almost there. His wait was finally worth but there are still some time left, what if the food finishes? What if they give it to someone else? What if he has to stay hungry.

Contentment follows, this man must have worked all day, worked really hard. He must be really tired. He wouldn't have anything to eat all day, or maybe something to eat in the morning when his wife gave him the left overs? But now he will eat, he is content, he is thankful.

You can go on and on with these feeling, there are so many.

But then let's look at it more carefully, you see helplessness. See that old man at the back? Bent? Can't even stand properly? He for sure won't be able to walk properly, but maybe he has no family left, he has no job and he can't work anymore? Maybe his family has kicked him out because they can't afford to feed an old man, who once provided for the family, in fact all his life. But now he is hopeless and helpless.

What do WE feel?

Most of us feel nothing. Just see a picture and that's it. Oh for some, we can blame our government for not providing people with the basic necessities of life like food and shelter. Or we feel sad for such people, or we can actually do something for or to change, or at the very least, we can correct ourselves.

How much does such food mean to us? I guess nothing. We all belong to good families, who spend lavishly on food and stuff. I mean that's not wrong.. I love food, I love going out with friends, and for family dinners. But sadly we don't even care if we waste food, we don't even look towards food when it is not our favorite one or it isn't something we like to eat. We choose food, I do too, I confess.

What should WE learn?

We should learn to be THANKFUL for what we have. We should thank Allah for what we have, for what we get. We should thank Allah for the things he has given us to eat, we should think just for a little while that here we have food right in front of us, but somewhere in this world someone will be eating a two days old roti with a green pepper or a half peeled onion, or maybe somewhere someone is hungry for days, and maybe ... somewhere out there, people are standing in a line for hours waiting for a naan and two pakoras.