Starring: A fistful of candies

She was a little girl like any other, happy with her toys, her school, her friends. Every morning she would pass by uncle Abin's shop. He would pull her cheeks and hand her some coloured candies. Her father would scold her for accepting free things, her mother would say it's because she looks like a doll everybody pets her. Sometimes she would get embarrassed and try to return him the candies, but he would thrust it in her hand and say, 'Don't worry, when I need something I'll first come to you'. She would ask, 'Promise?', he would nod and give out a loud laugh.

The year was 1942. Bengal (in India) was hit by one the worst famines ever. The colonial leaders hoarded all the rice that led to thousands of villages dieing out of hunger. The streets would be full of wails of hungry men, women and children. They would sit begging at people's doors for hours. But even the rich didn't have enough to both eat and share. One day she was sleeping in her room when she heard a familiar voice. She went to the window and found uncle Abin there. He looked like a ghost, his face was blue and his eyes were in giant hollows. He outstretched his hand and the word 'food' came out of the deep recesses of his belly. She was about to run into the kitchen when her mother scooped in and shut the window. She said, 'Do you want to give him your father's meal?' and grabbed her away from there.

Today, the little girl is an eighty year old woman. Even now she sometimes wakes up at night hearing a cry for 'food'.

(The woman is my grandmother-in-law and one of the most fascinating characters. Amongst many other things, she has also been an Indian freedom fighter. More than a million people died in the famine in those years.)