How Can Conversations Feed Your Hunger, Really?

Female Voice: Last night, Mom had a stomach upset. She had the mutton gravy for dinner, and it did not sit well with her.

Male Voice: If she takes gas medicine, she will be ok

Male Voice 1: If you drank less, you would remember that you were supposed to pay the bill.

Male Voice 2: Well, I forget even on the days I don’t drink.

These are the snippets of conversations I hear from my house in India, along with the smell of mutton gravy, the sound of the pressure cooker or the mixie, and sometimes songs. In the middle of the night, our neighbour’s dog decides to bark his head off - and this morning, somebody’s alarm kept going off every fifteen minutes for god knows how long. You would think this bothers me, but it doesn’t, because this is what I have known most of my life. I remember in Bombay we used to live close to Bombay Dyeing Mills, and on holiday when it closed for the first time, I woke up thinking what was wrong, as it was eerily quiet. Even in London, I fell asleep to the sounds of police sirens, drunken teenagers or adults making their way up the flats, or sounds of pub goers. How is this related to food, you ask?

I never snacked for comfort until I came to the US. It is not just quiet where I live in Columbus, Ohio - it is lonely. Lonely - how it is defined in my dictionary based on how I grew up. Even now, as I write this blog, I can hear a couple of female voices next door, birds chirping hardcore, the dog growling, the sound of a scooter starting somewhere, the whirring of the fan and the sound of rain pattering and then thundering. It’s like being in a cafe 24/7, so a part of my mind is automatically aware of these noises and knows it’s home with other people. It’s like these noises are a reminder that I am a part of the community that probably does not recognise itself as one. It is hard to feel lonely when you hear the kids playing cricket on weekends and breaking a neighbour’s window. It’s hard to forget that you are human when you hear your neighbour’s squabbling over the sewer water - and it is constant.

And with these noises, my inner hunger is sated, removing the need to snack unnecessarily to drown out the silence within and without. Don’t get me wrong - sometimes the quiet is nice, but the constant hum of other humans is soothingly quiet in its own way. Even when I am meditating or sleeping, a part of my mind is aware of these noises as a lullaby. One of the qualities that we develop when we are meditating is tolerance - when sixty or so people are meditating, someone will cough or move. We are encouraged to use that as an opportunity to tolerate. And without knowing this is what most Indians do from the time we are born, we are loud and noisy. Just as I write this, my mom started the grinder, which I am sure the neighbour can hear. I guess that’s why I get homesick - I must come home to stock up that part of my mind which wants to hear the sounds, listen to English spoken in an Indian accent, listen to Indian ads on radio and TV, soak in the sights of people who look like me, dress like me. I don’t know, but encapsulate what home means to me more than just family.

And when there is so much satisfaction outside, the need to find solace elsewhere goes away - a part of you is home and is not seeking anything else. Where is your home - when you are not seeking but just there?