These are my personal reflections on food, ambition and the expectations we bring to the table.
A thought struck me today: whatever we do, whatever we achieve, however far our ambitions take us, sooner or later we return to food.
We may spend hours solving a difficult problem, creating something beautiful or pursuing a passion. For a while, we become so absorbed that we barely notice hunger.
Then the body interrupts.
All right, enough of your achievements. What are we eating?
The meal that can overshadow a wedding
Think of a wedding, especially an Indian wedding.
The decorations may be magnificent. The hosts may welcome everyone warmly. The music, clothes and arrangements may be extraordinary.
But if dinner is late, the food is cold or the dishes disappoint, what do people discuss afterwards?
“Everything was fine, but the food…”
An entire celebration can find itself judged by what arrived on a plate.
Not everyone reacts this way, of course. Yet the pattern is familiar enough to make us smile—and perhaps wonder.
We become frustrated when food does not arrive on time. We feel disappointed when it is not what we wanted. And when there is nothing to eat, our grander concerns can quickly lose their importance.
Hunger asks for nourishment. Appetite adds a more particular demand:
Yes, but something I like.
Sometimes, the reaction goes beyond disappointment. A delayed meal or a favourite dish not being ready can provoke an outburst that changes the atmosphere of an entire home or gathering. A sharp remark becomes an argument, and everyone around the table feels the tension.
Being hungry does not excuse mistreating the person preparing or serving the food. But the intensity of the reaction is worth observing.
How does an ordinary meal acquire so much power over us?
When food becomes a family grievance
Sometimes, even relationships between relatives can suffer over a meal.
Someone visits a family home and feels that the food was inadequate, served too late or offered without the warmth they expected. The visit ends, but the grievance stays.
“They didn’t even feed us properly.”
In some families, that becomes a story repeated for years. What began at the dining table can contribute to a silence that lasts for decades.
Imagine—a meal can become the starting point of such a long estrangement.
We might call it wounded pride, hurt ego or a feeling of being disrespected. Those descriptions may explain why the grievance continues. But in the situations I am thinking of, the immediate trigger was food—or the way it was offered.
That is where my curiosity lies.
Food can become a measure of affection, hospitality, importance and respect. Someone may interpret a disappointing meal as a sign that they themselves do not matter.
The food is soon gone. The meaning attached to it remains.
Something meant to bring people together around a table can become the memory that keeps them apart.
Our ambitions grow. Our hunger returns.
Education, exposure and the lives we see around us can expand our ambitions.
At first, we may simply want a job and enough money to support ourselves. Then we want to contribute, excel and receive recognition.
Perhaps we become employee of the month.
Then a manager, a director, a vice-president.
Each achievement opens the possibility of another.
And how do we so often celebrate?
“Let’s go to our favourite restaurant.”
After the effort, responsibility and promotion, we sit down to a meal we enjoy.
The achievement may be new. The pleasure is wonderfully familiar.
Work can bring discovery, purpose, independence and the satisfaction of helping others. Food does not explain every ambition. Yet I find something humbling in the fact that so many of our proudest moments end around a table.
We reach a new position, earn a new title—and still look forward to our favourite dish.
What are we really hungry for?
Food sustains us, but it also accompanies celebration, comfort and belonging. A familiar meal can bring back childhood, home or someone who once cooked for us.
Sometimes, “Have you eaten?” is one of the simplest ways of saying:
"I care about you."
In Ram Dass’s Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba, Maharaj-ji is remembered saying:
“We have an inner thirst for food. We don’t know of it.”
In that account, a devotee asks why he feeds people so much when a few chapattis would be enough to stay alive. Maharaj-ji responds by describing the soul’s thirst for food and encouraging the devotee to take prasad.
I would not interpret this as a declaration that the soul seeks only food. But it makes me wonder whether a meal offered with love can nourish something beyond physical hunger.
That is my interpretation, rather than a claim about precisely what Maharaj-ji intended.
Perhaps food matters so deeply because bodily need and emotional meaning meet around it.
So, which is it?
We eat to live. That much is unavoidable.
But we also organise parts of our lives around the pleasure of eating: the wedding feast, the birthday dinner, the holiday breakfast, the meal that marks a promotion.
Sometimes, we allow disappointment over food to overshadow the people offering it.
Can we still appreciate the wedding if dinner was ordinary? Can we enjoy a relative’s company if our favourite dish is unavailable? Can we express disappointment without making everyone around us suffer?
I enjoy good food too. These questions arise from noticing how much importance we give it, including in my own life.
Whatever heights we reach, hunger returns. Whatever titles we collect, we still need nourishment.
Perhaps that is both the humility and the humour of being human.
We can become someone very important—and still find ourselves asking, “What’s for dinner?”
-Ash
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