Guest post by Jasbir S Jagdeo, author of The Shreds of Character
It has always been said that we are slaves to our stomachs. We do whatever we do, basically, to insure against hunger. No matter how much a man has, he needs more to keep his anxiety in control. The fear of that day when he would have nothing keeps him struggling for more. In our part of the world, and most likely everywhere else, common barely managing people wonder about business tycoons and filthy rich politicians and celebrities, their needs, their hunger. Hunger for more. Even with all the world or nation or state in their bellies, they seem hungry for more. It surely is the fear of sleeping on an empty stomach that keeps them expanding their empires, whatever kind they may be.
The other day I saw a farmer, which is a suicide tribe if you might ask what is a farmer and you might, sitting next to his tube well even as I approached it alighting from my car to wash hands. He was watching the fields being flooded by the water that the tube well was pumping out. Inspired by newspapers flooded with suicide reports by farmers across the country, I asked him if everything was going well for him in particular and his acquaintances in general. I asked him specifically about whether they had enough to eat. He ogled me for quite a while making me uncomfortable and then laughed like I had just cracked a joke he understood perfectly.
"You know even if I have one acre of land," he said, "I can grow enough on it to feed my entire family the whole year round. All we need is little grain and vegetables. Don’t need any fertilizers and pesticides to feed my family. But I have four acres of land and yet I find it difficult to sustain the kind of living I am told to follow."
"I don’t understand," I admitted.
"Of course, you won’t. Crop fills the stomachs and the parasites keep destroying them. But they never made pesticides for the real parasites."
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Books by Jasbir S Jagdeo
The Shreds of Character ~ View on Bookshelves | View on Amazon
A Fine Poet ~ View on Bookshelves | View on Amazon
Broken News ~ View on Bookshelves | View on Amazon