Way back in the 70’s, I went to Catholic school. That was when the nuns had free reign to rain terror down on you at will.
One of the recurring themes was cleaning your plate. At lunch, they’d give you this compartmentalized tray and place fairly nasty dabs of food in each compartment. We had to eat it because “People in India are starving”.
No matter how dry the chicken was, or how pasty the gravy was, or how lumpy the mashed potatoes were, we had to eat it because “People are starving in India”.
I didn’t even know where India was. Hell, I pictured India as post-apocalyptic and filled with droves of starving people.
One nun in particular drilled us about this in religion class. The culmination of her speech was, in short, that people in India are starving to such an extensive degree that they spend their days rummaging through garbage dumps in hopes of “finding a single egg shell so that they can lick the inside of it” for sustenance.
Damn. Now that’s hungry.
Fast forward a good 35 years or so, and I found myself working with folks from India. We were about the same age. As we got comfortable with each other, I said, “Hey, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure”.
“Way back in the 1970’s, were you ever starving over there in India?”
“Uh, no.”.
“Did you know of anyone who was busy starving about that time?”
“Uh, no”.
“Did you ever hear of, or read about, anyone around that time who was so hungry that they spent their days rummaging through garbage to lick the insides of egg shells?”
“Uh, no. And please stop asking me questions”.