Surviving Hunger: A Primordial Force

As someone who has never experienced hunger in any serious way, I was presented in this book the enormity of the primordial force that hunger is. With enough on this abundant earth to feed everyone for many lifetimes and when one is well fed, it is easy to forget that hunger drives the world even today. The novel opens with a chapter titled ‘Bhat’(cooked rice) in which Garib Das, father of the titular bhaga hua ladka, the runaway boy who will be born later that night, walks a long distance, hungry and weary, to ask the local well-to-do Brahmin Shivnath Bhattacharya for some rice. After an exchange in helplessness, humiliation, apathy and hard labour of a full day, Garib Das manages to return home with some rice but meanwhile, the child, Jeevan, has already arrived in the world.