Phoenix

Those millions of conversation you have in your mind, sometimes they are words that you can almost feel and sometimes they aren't even thoughts, yet you know what they mean. Or atleast you think so.

They take the form of uncertainity - not knowing what lurks around the corner. Oh how you wish you could take a sneak peek standing 5 feet away.

You advocate that the choices we make determine who we are and where we are headed. But the choices you made don't seem to be taking you anywhere. You are lost.

In the milling crowd, you search for familiar voices. Suddenly, you decide to walk away. You have wonderful company for the evening but you are still alone. You quickly check for your shadow - reassuring yourself that your faithful friend is still around.

You used to advice people that change is good. Yet today you think that it is just a justification given when things don't go the way you want, but you are forced to reconcile with reality.

You involve yourself in mundane activities to keep you occupied and tire yourself physically just to escape the daily trauma of putting yourself to sleep or waking up in the middle of the night.

One fine day you decide that you've had enough. You want to break free and decide that tomorrow would be a brand new day. But that tomorrow never comes.

You act strong, invulnerable. Yet, you know that you are like the duck in the pond. People just see your graceful swim, not noticing the desperate pedalling below the surface that helps you keep afloat.

Then one day you get bored of being bored. You get bored of telling people that you have a routine life. You start surfacing. You don't know whether the choices you made are right, but you know that you would make the very same ones if you could go back in time. You realise that you are still lost, but you begin to look around and start thinking that the journey isn't as bad as you had thought. It could have been much worse. No one knows, but today, you are reborn. You are Phoenix.

Lets do something about it..

I am uncomfortable. There is a food crisis in the world today and it is only going to get worse. I am so lucky to be immune to 5-8% rise in food costs, yet for majority of my countrymen and the population around the world, 5-8% rise is a 'recipe' for disaster. It would push many below poverty line and those below poverty line into disaster zone.

I am uncomfortable because at a very personal level I am completely uneasy with the feeling of someone going to bed hungry while I (and people around me) waste food because they had ordered too much or cooked a lot. It is not like I woke up today and discovered that I was uneasy with this thought, but in the past with the progress we were making, conditions were improving and we were successfully lifting more and more people above poverty line. But with the current price rise and given that it is here to stay for a while, it only means that all our hard earned progress might be nullified. Our Prime Minister has rightly called inflation a risk against which most of our country has little or no protection.

I want to do something at a broader scale but I do not know what to do or how to help. I welcome any and every idea that you guys have where I can commit my time/effort to help the cause. And while I try and figure out what to do to help in the larger scheme of things, I make a few personal committments here

1. I shall skip atleast one meal a week (if not two).

2. I would under-order at restaurants and eat a little less than order in excess and waste food.

3. Finally, I would spread this message around hoping to influence more people to be conscious about food consumption and wastage.

Lastly, I hope the few readers who do read this blog, also take it upon themselves to help spread awareness and make some personal committments in whichever manner they deem suitable, to help the situation. Individually, our efforts might be small and isolated but few hundreds of us can make a difference.

ps: The Inflation is 5-8% on a basket of goods. Essentials like grains, milk etc have escalated in double digits.