i am currently reading “Garlic and Sapphires” – a book by Ruth Reichl, a former Restaurant Critic for the New York Times. the book is very engaging and interesting – and is centred on Reichl’s experiences when she had to disguise herself to avoid being recognised as “the critic”. all through the pages, the anecdotes are witty and humorous, but one incident she describes nearly brought tears to my eyes. Reichl had dressed as a “nobody”-type-50s-something and lunched at one of New York’s glamorous food establishment. upon being slighted by another patron, when the later considered it beneath her dignity to sit near her, she requested the hotel to pack the remainder of her meal in a doggie bag and left the place. on her way back home on the subway…
“I was thinking up ways to describe the duck when a homeless man came shuffling through the car. His pants were torn and his army jacket was layered with the filth of too many nights on the sidewalk. A sad woollen cap was pulled down over his reddened ears and a moth-eaten grey scarf twisted around his wattled neck. He looked so ragged that people tucked their feet beneath them as he passed, hoping to avoid his touch. When he got to the end of the car he turned, took a breath, and began to speak.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, his voice rusty from disuse. ‘I’ll take anything. If you have half a sandwich you didn’t eat at lunch, or the core of an apple, I’d be happy to have it. Maybe you’ve got a few crumbs of potato chips left in the bottom of the bag. That would do too.’
I noticed that as he walked down the aisle the other passengers looked down or buried themselves in their papers. Hunger is embarassing. When he reached my seat, I handed him the bag from La Cote Basque and he stared in disbelief. Grabbing it, he walked to the end of the car and sat down in the seat that says it is reserved for the handicapped. I expected him to tear into the food and stuff it into his mouth, but he did not. With great dignity, he spread the scarf on his lap as if it were a napkin, then pulled the container from the bag and set it on the scarf. Removing the wrapping, he examined his windfall. ‘Roasted duckling!’ he croaked. And then, very delicately, he picked the leg up in his fingers and ate it slowly, savouring every morsel.”
i know for a fact that if such a man walked on our mrts or buses today, we too would ignore him. if he asked for food, many of us may hesitate. we would feel embarassed – by such a person’s presence in our well-groomed metropolis, by the fact that we have to even respond, and when we fail to live up to own standards of humanitarianism.