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15 Jun, 2016

A satiated Ramadan – Times of India

By Eternally Hungry

I stopped the car near a footpath and thought of sharing the sheer delights with the street children. Well yes, because I wouldn’t have eaten them anyway. I asked one of them if they could eat mutton and the answer shook me forever, “Bhookh mein kuch bhi chalega”. I got up instantly, though I had plans of staying back to watch the children devour the goodies, but I could not. Sitting in the car and driving to nowhere, I had been converted that day, not by Hindu gurus, Muslim maulanas or by Christian missionaries, but by a bunch of hungry children.

That day I inculcated a new religion, that of feeding anyone who’s hungry, even if that meant foregoing a chapati. I had read somewhere that people who don’t fast during the holy month could make up for the missed fasts by feeding a hungry person for each day they did not fast, well this was my way of serving the God, who had ensured I never missed a meal ever. I have often wondered why some of us don’t like to share our food, in fact some even throw it in the bin without thinking once about that kid on the footpath with the moonlit sky for a roof, who’ll be sleeping hungry tonight.

Read the rest: A satiated Ramadan – Times of India