I have never gone hungry thanks to divine grace, although my parents had seen some tough times and went hungry during the war. Though my father gave away his property and wealth when an array of machine gun bullets missed him when the Japanese opened fire from a plane when war broke out, we never went hungry while we grew up. As we grew up there would be two meals a day and what remained of lunch would be rolled into balls and given to us for dinner. We soon came out of this when my siblings each took a job. When I was doing an internship with the Public Works Department during college, I had a two-week stand on an island where a school was coming up. Apart from the homes of some 300 villagers, there was only a small sundry shop that catered for emergencies. Everything else had to be purchased from the mainland. But the divine arranged food for me. The local Malay headman would share his simple food, fried fish with white rice and a flask of black coffee to wash it down. This is where I learned to take coffee after having rice. Starting my working career in the fishing village of Lumut, we were provided housing amidst the project that was built. A colleague and his wife fed me before another bachelor colleague who knew how to cook fed me and others. Apart from them, a retired Petty Officer with the Navy who was running the canteen and his three wives fed us well. Moving out of the quarters later, a Christian family some doors away fed me. Then my parents came to stay with me. Moving to Kuala Lumpur a Muslim mother who ran a food stall opposite my office block fed me. I married and had my new wife cook for us while at home. Returning from a project in Subang back to the HQ, the stall was there but the Muslim mother had passed on. My Muslim officemates took really good care of me too both in the office and when we were on the move. By this time I was a vegetarian. Initially, they would question me on my choice of diet and finding nothing that complied, would tell me to eat what I could take. Soon they began to prepare or cater to my needs too. When we are out they would inform the hotels to prepare vegetarian meals. Whenever my wife is out, our neighbor, who observes the forty days of fasting before Easter, taking vegetarian meals, shares them with me too. Life could never be better. I am thankful to the divine forces who brought together all these caring souls and looked over our shoulders.
