Of Haunting Hunger

Right from birth to death, hunger continues to haunt man in one way or the other; it’s a cog in the wheel of life

By Mukesh Sharma

No living creature can beat it. None can conquer it. It is invincible. It is master of all the forms of life. All are its slave. Each and every living being knows it and experiences it. Be it king or commoner, all serve it alike without question. Yet it is unquenchable. It is undisputed and unchallenged ruler of the living world. From tiny protozoan to huge mammals, all work for it. Like God, it is omnipresent and all pervasive. It is basis of life on the earth. Even mother Nature nourishes the world through it. Of course, its name is Hunger – the haunting Hunger.

The Haunting Hunger

 

All through millions of years, it is the hunger that has developed a simple monkey into a present day complicated man. It is the hunger that has taken a savage man from cramped cave to commodious castle, from ordinary house to spacious bungalow, from bullock-cart to space satellite, and surprisingly enough, from Adam and Eve to nearly 7 billion populace on the earth.

Hunger has amazing dualistic character. Hunger is life as well as death – a crying baby is born with hunger and a decrepit man dies with hunger for ‘heaven’ on death-bed. Hunger is love as well as hate  – hunger for more and more ‘my’ – my kids, my house, my money, etc. is ‘love’ and hunger for dislike is hate. Hunger is progress as well as regress – hunger for betterment results in progress and hunger for other’s possessions leads to regress. Hunger is knowledge as well as ignorance – hunger to know the secrets of nature is knowledge and hunger for ego-serving is ignorance. Hunger is devotion as well as distraction – hunger for goal is devotion and hunger for the gratification of senses is distraction. Hunger is a man as well as woman – hunger of a man for a woman-body is man, hunger of a woman for a complete man is woman. Hunger is God as well as human – hunger beyond self is God and hunger for self is human. Like the imagination of a mind, hunger can be expanded to infinity and can be shrunk to a size of an atom. Hunger is both constructive and destructive.

Through human perspective, hunger can be divided into four categories:

1.       Physical hunger

2.       Psychological hunger

3.       Intellectual hunger

4.       Spiritual hunger

Physical hunger can be described as a natural or biological hunger – hunger for food and hunger for sex. It is common to all animals including man. Food is first priority and sex is next. Food is must to live and sex for the furtherance of progeny – both essential for the perpetuation of life on the earth.

Psychological hunger is a distorted hunger emanating from unbridled desires. A man turns epicurean or hedonistic seeking sensuous satisfaction – wine, woman and wealth – an insatiable lust. Fire can’t be extinguished with fire. The uncontrolled ‘hunger’ for wine, woman and wealth has been the cause of the downfall and doom of wealthiest emperor/knight/regimes.

Intellectual hunger is the hunger for the knowledge of the secrets of nature; it leads to discoveries and inventions. Credit for all kinds of advancement in human society so far goes to intellectual hunger only. It is this hunger that has produced great many philosophers, writers, poets and scientists -  Aristotle, Shakespeare, Kalidaas, Albert Einstein, Stephn Hawkings –  the list is very long.

Spiritual hunger is the hunger for the knowledge of unseen and unknown super natural power so named God. What is God? Where does God live? How to meet the God? All these intriguing questions have been nagging man since the advent of man on the earth. However, this spiritual hunger has blessed the world with Lord Rama - God incarnate, Lord Krishna - God incarnate, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad and Guru Nanak; it has bestowed on timeless scriptures like The Upanishad, The Gita, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, The Bible,  The Holy Quran, The Guru Granth Sahib.

Right from birth to death, hunger continues to haunt man in one or the other. Hunger is the cog in the wheel of life.

‘My’ Woman and ‘Other’ Woman

 

‘My’ Woman and

‘Other’ Woman

MY WOMAN is man’s social need and OTHER WOMAN is man’s physical hunger

By Mukesh Sharma

 

All through ages and scriptures, the woman has been eulogized with the winged words. Paeans have been sung in her honour: God is within her, she will not fall, says the Bible. The holy Koran puts woman as a mother on the pedestal higher than God. The Hindu religion deifies her as Goddess Minerva, Lakshmi, and Durga. Says Diane Mariechild, “A woman is a full circle. Within her is a power to create, nurture and transform.”

However, keeping in view the plight of the common woman on the ground, all flowery statements can be dismissed as sheer intellectual dandyism.

 

It’s a fact that in man’s world, women are classified in two categories: MY WOMAN and OTHER WOMAN. MY WOMAN signifies - my daughter, my sister, my wife, my mother or any relation related to ‘My.’ And any woman who doesn’t fall under the category of ‘my’ is ‘OTHER WOMAN.

MY WOMAN deserves all the needed care and caress, pamper and preferences. She is respected and is made hon’ble woman. She gives birth to man’s legal heirs and furthers his lineage. Undoubtedly, she is indispensable part of man’s social system. And the man is essentially a social animal.

Behind the most of the successful women, there is force of ‘my’. It may come from father, brother, husband or son. If ‘my’ does not spring from any social relation, it may emanate from any ‘friend’ i.e. ‘my friend’. Nevertheless, the force of ‘my’ from a friend doesn’t come for free. The woman enjoying it must pay the ‘price’; she must compromise her ‘principle’. In his Uncle Vanya (1897), says Anton Chekhov:

A woman can become a man’s

friend only in the following stages - first

an acquaintance, next a mistress and

only then a friend.

 Moonshine is not possible without the sunshine. Exceptions are rare. 

On the other hand, OTHER WOMAN is the most coveted woman for the man. She is leered at public places; she is looked on with prying eyes; she is ogled in the assembly; she is touched up in metro; she is groped and grappled in jam-packed buses; she is harassed at work places; sexual advances are made wherever she is.  Moment she is out of her home, she is raped by words, thoughts and action. Total reported cases of rape in 2019 were 32,033 – 88 rapes every day. Figures may be phenomenally high with unreported cases across India.

Irony is OTHER WOMAN is not safe without the force of ‘my’ of the man. At any stage of age, she is considered as ripe for rape. Reported cases of child rape in orphanage and children shelter home don’t surprise the common people, particularly, in India.

It’s an acknowledged fact that to an ambitious OTHER WOMAN, even if she is talented and educated, it is not easy to make a niche in man’s world. Every Kangna will have to pass through the  casting couch; off the record, she will be referred to with choicest words – harmkhor  is only on the record. ‘Me too’ revelations by scores of ‘celebrities’ tell the plight and predicament of ‘OTHER’ WOMAN in man’s world.

When this OTHER WOMAN is left to fend for herself by the ‘MY’, she has no choice but to embrace the ancient profession – selling her body in man’s market. Like other languages, English too has umpteen derogatory words to make a mention of such OTHER WOMAN – Prostitute, whore, harlot, hooker, scarlet woman, street walker, hustler, one night stand girl, lady of the evening, gold digger, etc. Each noun is self explanatory and a jibe against OTHER WOMAN.

OTHER WOMAN who don’t want to adopt the ‘profession’ prefer to find a Sugar Daddy – a man double the age of a woman who has enough means to support the other young woman. She lives with the man like his wife. For an elderly man, a young woman is a trophy wife. Man’s law has coined the phrase for such relationship as live-in partner. Man always has upperhand. A woman is destined to crouch and cry under the weight of man.

Though the law cries hoarse to tell the world that woman is not second to man, she lives under watchful eyes of man as a daughter, wife, and mother. Gender sensitization is just an eye wash. She becomes “Bharat ki beti” after her brutal rape and murder only like Nirbhay. Even capital punishment is wanting to deter man to repeat Nirbhaya in different parts of India. Leave aside the man of alleged low bred or of base origin, even the man seemingly gentlemen in broad day light may turn out to be a beast in the dead of night. What matters is opportunity. MY WOMAN is a social need of the man and OTHER WOMAN is his physical hunger.