For Hunger's Sake Poem by Anupam Sinha

I have always felt
the feeling of truest kind.
Don’t remember my antecedents
but always remember the time,
when as a small kid
felt the crushing emptiness,
in not so large stomach of mine.
Pain- whose existence was trivial for many
but not for likes of mine.
Grew up to be, in turns
a beggar,
a scavenger,
a thief.
But at the altar of hunger
insignificant seemed these offerings.
Still raged that fire.
On the pavement
near that overflowing garbage bin
and a perpetual stench of urine.
On an abandoned railway carriage
and in many more places
and many more times
ravaged had I been,
with promises false
of the eternal conquest of the fire.
Instead shoved into my hand
was a crumpled fiver
or maybe a ten.
Imprinted on my mind
with passage of time
was the growth of hunger.
Insufficient was one meal
a loaf of bread and a tumbler of chai.
Other day begged for a
bit of boiled rice.
What an aroma!
Can’t put in words
the heartfelt joy.
Then dawned the realization
this hunger was Elysium
source of my happiness,
hope for life ahead,
only way to feel alive,
an idealism of sorts.
Born into this idealism,
waking about it in morning,
dreaming about it in night,
thinking about it,
every single moment of my lifetime.
Tell me oh world,
am I not an idealist?