“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
– Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), an Indian lawyer, political leader, and anti-colonial activist who led India’s nonviolent struggle for independence from British rule.
BACK when I was small – truly small, both in stature and in worldly understanding – the late 1950s and the 1960s painted a very simple picture of poverty for me. I thought poverty boiled down to one thing and one thing only: food.
If you had something to eat, you weren’t poor.
End of story. Food wasn’t just sustenance; it was the gateway to everything else.
Once you had secured your next meal, your mind could wander.
You could think about other comforts.
But without food, none of that mattered.
Hunger narrowed your world until it contained only one question: what next?
Without food, the choices were stark.
You could work on an empty stomach, which would be like pushing a cart uphill with no wheels.
You could sleep, or you could beg – or worse, borrow.
Borrowing has invisible strings, subtle expectations, and a quiet loss of independence.
It is a bit like placing your freedom in someone else’s hands.
For me, it was as simple as that. Hunger was not some abstract concept tossed about in speeches or essays; it was an equation.
Having food meant not being poor.
No food meant very poor.
There was no middle ground, no grey area, no philosophical debate.
A village of plenty
From the ages of nine to twelve, I often lived alone in my village for about half the year.
My parents and younger siblings would leave for our paddy farm, miles away, following the rhythm of planting and harvesting.
I would stay behind, entrusted with the house and, more importantly, with myself.
“Fend for myself” might sound dramatic, as if I were battling the elements or wrestling wild beasts.
In truth, it was far less heroic and far more ordinary.
The days passed in a steady rhythm, marked by the rising and setting of the sun, the crowing of roosters, and the occasional chatter of neighbours passing by.
Yes, the solitude could get to me.
There were moments when I wished for someone to talk to.
But more often than not, the solitude felt like freedom.
There was no one to tell me what to do, no schedule to follow but my own.
It was a quiet sort of independence, the kind that creeps up on you and settles in your bones.
Before my family left each season, my parents made sure I had rice, salt and matches – the essentials.
Sometimes, I had a small tin of lard or a bit of sugar to be rationed carefully, used sparingly.
But the real preparation lay outside the house.
My father and I – well, mostly my father – would spend days turning our compound into a food jungle.
Calling it a garden would be an insult. Gardens are neat, orderly, and polite.
This was none of those things. It was wild, tangled, and gloriously abundant.
Leafy greens were growing in every corner, creeping vines climbing over makeshift supports, and herbs sprouting where you least expected them.
To an outsider, it might have looked like neglect.
To us, it was a carefully orchestrated chaos, each plant serving a purpose. If I ever grew tired of what was within arm’s reach, the surrounding jungle stood ready to offer more.
Bamboo shoots pushed through the earth like hidden treasures.
Wild ferns unfurled in delicate spirals.
Mushrooms appeared after the rain, as if conjured by magic.
There was always something to gather, something to try.
And then there was the stream.
Ah, the stream. It wound its way behind our house, clear and steady, its soft murmuring a constant presence.
It was more than just water; it was life.
Fish darted beneath the surface, prawns hid among the stones, snails clung to the edges, and crabs scuttled about with quiet determination.
With a bit of patience and a simple net – or sometimes just my hands – I could gather enough for a meal in half an hour.
It felt almost unfair, the ease with which food could be found.
As if the world, at least in that small corner, had decided that hunger was unnecessary.
We were not rich. Not by any measure.
The 1960s were not easy years, and no one in the village would have claimed otherwise.
Money was scarce, opportunities limited.
But hunger? Hunger was a stranger.
Unless someone chose to do nothing at all – and I mean truly nothing – food was always within reach. Cooking, of course, was another matter.
My skills were basic at best.
Rice boiled, vegetables thrown together, fish cooked over an open flame.
Nothing fancy, nothing worthy of praise.
But the meals filled the belly, and that was enough.
More than enough, really.
The hunger gap
For a long time, the idea of hunger puzzled me.
When I heard people speak of it – real hunger, persistent hunger – I found myself tilting my head in confusion.
What did they mean? How could that be?
Were there no streams where they lived? No jungles to forage?
No patches of land to grow something, anything?
It did not occur to me then that my experience was not universal.
Then I grew up. I went to school, then further still.
I left the village, stepping into a wider world that was, in many ways, less generous than the one I had known.
And there it was – hunger.
Not the occasional missed meal or the mild discomfort of an empty stomach, but a deep, relentless hunger that seemed to have no easy solution.
People living in crowded cities are far from any source of natural food.
Families with no land to cultivate, no stream to fish from, no jungle to wander through.
Food, in those places, was not something you could simply find. It had to be bought.
And if you had no money, you had no food. It was as simple and as cruel as that.
What struck me even more was not just the hunger itself, but the way it was perceived.
The poor were not only struggling; they were judged.
Labelled as lazy, as lacking intelligence, as irresponsible.
It was as if their circumstances were a personal failing, rather than the result of larger forces at play.
And yet, many of these people carried themselves with a quiet dignity that was impossible to ignore.
They had pride.
Not the loud, boastful kind, but a steady, unyielding sense of self-worth.
They did not want handouts.
Not because they did not need them – they clearly did – but because accepting charity often came with an unspoken cost.
A loss of dignity, a sense of being diminished in the eyes of others. Imagine that.
To be hungry, truly hungry, and still hold on to your pride.
It is both heartbreaking and deeply admirable.
A sarcastic rant (but with love)
Now, let me be clear.
There is nothing admirable about hunger itself.
It is not poetic, not noble, not something to be romanticised.
Hunger is harsh and unforgiving, and it strips away comfort and choice in equal measure.
But what does deserve a bit of scrutiny – perhaps even a bit of mockery – is the way some people talk about the poor.
“Why don’t they just work harder?” Yes, of course.
Because effort alone can fill an empty stomach.
Because energy appears out of nowhere, even when the body is running on nothing.
It is a charming idea, really, if not entirely detached from reality.
“Why don’t they stop having so many children?”
Ah, yes.
Because life always unfolds according to careful planning.
Because people living in uncertainty have the luxury of long-term strategies and perfect decision-making.
It is a neat argument, tidy and convenient, and utterly lacking in empathy.
And then there are the solutions.
Food banks, welfare programmes, charity drives – all well-meaning, all necessary in their own way.
They provide relief, sometimes immediate and crucial relief.
But they do not solve the underlying problem.
They are, at best, temporary measures.
It is like placing a plaster on a wound that requires proper treatment.
It helps, certainly. It may even prevent things from getting worse in the short term.
But it does not heal the injury.
The real issues – inequality, lack of access, systemic barriers – remain untouched.
And until those are addressed, hunger will continue to exist, no matter how many parcels of food are distributed.
A bit of resignation (and hope)
So where does that leave us?
If I am honest, I do not have a clear answer.
The world is complicated, and poverty is woven into its fabric in ways that are not easily undone.
It is tempting to look for simple solutions, neat fixes that can be applied quickly and effectively.
But reality rarely cooperates with such wishes.
What I do know, however, is this: people are remarkably resilient.
I have seen it in a boy turning his home into a small food forest, making do with what he had.
I have seen it in others, far removed from that village, finding ways to survive in environments that offer far less.
There is a stubbornness to the human spirit, a refusal to give in completely.
It may bend, it may strain, but it does not break easily.
Perhaps that is the closest thing to a silver lining. It is not a grand solution, not a sweeping change.
But it is something real, something steady.
So here is to the hungry, the poor, and the misunderstood.
May they find not only food, but also dignity.
May they be seen not as problems to be solved, but as people to be respected.
And may the rest of us learn, at the very least, to be a little less quick to judge, and a little more willing to understand.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at hayhenlin@ gmail.com.
