Skipping one meal a day is no joke

I am writing in response to Carl Chairul's 'By the way: Can we really save rice by fasting?' of July 12, and the series of letters in Your Letters on the subject of fasting as a means of reducing national rice consumption so that there is more to go around.

Though I can well understand the skepticism with which the populace regards every word uttered by President B.J. Habibie, they would do well to remember there is some good to be learned from every source, no matter how base it may appear at first sight.

Admittedly, the current president's credibility is at a low ebb these days as nothing much of consequence appears to have been done so far to ease the suffering of the common man. I'm sure President Habibie did not address himself to only those who are already starving but also to all those of us who God has been good enough to still provide with food (I'm sure there are many of us for whom skipping one meal a day once a week is no great hardship).

I would like to mention here the parallel of a lesser-known prime minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who, incidentally, shares a birthday with the illustrious Mahatma Gandhi. It is, perhaps, a forgotten fact, but one which my compatriots who lived in India in the 1960s can vouch for, that prime minister Shastri had called upon the people to give up one meal a week to help ease the food crisis that was threatening the country, and let me tell you... no one laughed. We, even then mere school children, remember how proud we were to join in with our parents to do our bit for our country. Perhaps it helped that Shastri was himself the epitome of simplicity and well-known for his humble origins and lifestyle. Unfortunately, he was too short-lived to be able to implement some of his other ideas.

I do not say that this may be the only, and perfect, solution to Indonesia's food problem. What saddens me is that being cynical and vociferously critical seems to have become fashionable these days.

As to the author's rather naive suggestion about families giving up eating out as a means of saving money which could go to the needy -- can he provide definite evidence that this money saved would go towards helping feed the starving poor? Rather, does he realize that by taking away custom from these so-called fancy eating establishments people like him could force down- sizing or even the closure of many such restaurants -- thereby effective increasing the number of jobless people (and the starving)?

So, Carl Chairul, and other like-minded people, my suggestion to you is, don't knock it until you've tried it.

RITU SUD

Jakarta