Once in the past weekend, i was bankrupt. Totally. I joked to my cousins and friends that i was living below the poverty line.

Although this out-of-the-blue bout of penury was unnatural to me and a far cry from when i worked and squandered money, I actually wondered about how people could live in this situation for life. I was temporarily in the limbo because of an error by the bank in which i have my account, and was back to normal levels of living. But indeed this has been an unforgettable experience.

Many would think that i am unduly disturbed. That would have been the case, except that i was more disturbed about the surroundings than about me. It was a period of unexpected introspection and that hit hard.

Living below the poverty line was a learning experience. i could somewhat understand the plight of people who don't have enough money to eat two square meals a day.....the hunger that they experience and the hopelessness of their condition. i atleast could borrow from some people and have returned their money but the poor are forever stuck in a vicious circle. and they are the same people who are treated like dirt by the police, who are victimised and who, because they see no other way, take to crime as a last resort. i certainly did not think about this when i was working as did not have to face scarcity. dis time u know i purposely avoided having lunch on two days just to experience the hunger, the feeling of it being unsatiated just because u dont have money. i actually had enuf to eat but i didnt. it was a terrible feeling.

There are slums near my place. these are areas that are like oddities, a sore thumb sticking out amidst prosperity. i went there to see for myself what the hell did dese people eat? and how did they survive? it was squalor and a rotting smell all over the place. so i got out of dere fast but not before i saw their food, if at all that term can be used. it was something like rice and water u know. nothing else.

now i am not suddenly a transformed figure or something, but dis made me think, knowing the poverty figures, that there is something wrong somewhere with the economic policy. i dont subscribe to the leftist economic model but do agree that a large section has been left out in the cold. if dere are so many people below the poverty line, leading lives of utter misery and perhaps worse off than animals, the crime rate can only go up. For if a person feels the pangs of hunger, he feels irresponsible and a loser when he sees his family go hungry, when he knows he has no way to make their condition better. and who does he curse? the system, which has made many people rich but has not guaranteed a life of dignity for him and his children, who have a dark future ahead of them since he cant educate them and the govt schools are pathetic. so the reservation policy should perhaps be targeted at the poor rather than being caste based. or maybe both should be incorporated. I cant expect merit from people who do not have enough to eat, forget about nutrition. they need to be given a chance to come out of the abyss, to realise that hardwork pays dividends and that crime is not a solution. as lyndon Johnson said about the negroes in the US, u cant place a malnourished, untrained and deprived person in the front row of a race and still expect him to win.

i think hunger is a powerful leveller. I might still go to the pub sometimes and have some decent food at some place but i would be grateful for what i get. This does not mean i wud be satisfied with bad quality at a good place. it just means that i can do with less. Lesser than what i used to think was possible before this week. i might still not get into overly crowded buses stuffed with people, like a pillow with cotton, but know how to survive with less. More importantly I can understand to some extent what these people feel.