It was a sun-drenched day I, my family members were profoundly
dressed. We were all of us at a wedding lunch. The reception was just started.
The bride was splendid in silk sari and heavy gold jewellery, shone with inner
joy, as the young couple greeted guests that were still coming in.
It was one of the long-established sit down dinners in Karwar,
Karnataka, where we sit facing each other in long, unending rows. The food came
thick and fast, sometimes too fast to stop a dish from landing on my banana
leaf. I hate waste and kept looking out for the men who were serving us to warn
them to keep their servings small.
It was at one such jiffy that my eye caught sight of the act. I
saw a hand reach out and pick the large sweet from the leaf in front of its
owner, and ferret it away into a voluminous bag in her lap.
I looked up and was going to call out. But I stopped myself, just
in time.
A young girl opposite me had seen me watching and her eyes amplify
in fear, and then cloud over. The lady I had seen was evidently her mother. The
lady was still immersed in placing the sweet in a careful manner so as not to
smash it. I sensed the girl’s humiliation at the fact that her mother had been
caught doing something that made her seem lesser than all the others present,
and looked away swiftly, concentrating on the food on my plate.
In time, stole another look. The mother was simply dressed in a
plain silk sari. She wore no jewellery except a thin gold chain around her
neck, a couple of thin gold bangle on one hand and a small watch on the other.
The girl dressed in a cotton salwar- kameez, neat hair pinned to her oiled
head, and hanging in plaits on either side of her face. On the other side of
the mother, was another, much younger girl in a red frock, eating with
concentration of the very young. The trio was very out of the place in that
mixed jamboree. But, somehow, I was sure they were not gate- crashers. Yet, the
action of the mother told me a story.
Her looks, her manner of dress, all pointed out to some silent
struggle that her life must be, with two young girls under care.
The absence of a man in the group could mean he was dead, for the
reason that a married Hindu female wears Mangalsutra. The food she was stashing
away could be for their next meal.
I noticed, as the meal progressed, that she leaned across and
picked out the uneaten puri from the younger girl’s leaf and placed them into
her bag, too.
I was really glad I had not given in to my initial impulse.
Drawing attention to the act would have given me and my cousins a few moments
of discussions and levity, but could have done long standing damage to the
woman and her family. And, anyway, food stashers are not such and uncommon lot.
I have seen well off women, in jewellery and makeup, stash way cheese and fruit
from buffet tables. Some of the most practiced shoplifters are women who can
well afford to buy what they steal.
The woman in front of me was at least only taking away what she
could not eat. Her eyes were guiltless and I am sure she would never be tempted
to take something that was not really her right. Necessity, not voracity, was
her motivation in this case.
I smiled at that girl as I got up to leave, hoping to commune some
of the warmth and empathy I felt for her mother and her family to her. But, of
course, she did not smile back. As I passed the rows of recently emptied
chairs, I saw their occupants had left behind substantial amounts of food.
The rich, sweet, especially, sat forlorn and abandoned. Soon, the
cleaning man would come with his bucket and sweep everything away to be thrown
out, before out, before the table could be readied for the next set.
I thought of the
woman at home, carefully taking out her swag. And wished we could share more
readily what we do not want.
