Scraping the Pan for Crumbs of Pound Cake
by Dr. S. Amjad Hussain
This incident happened thirty years ago.
In American hospitals, the operating theaters are totally secluded from the rest of the hospital. It is a world where surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, surgical technicians, and other theater workers share this sanctum sanctorum.
Most operating theaters also have a lounge where, between cases, the staff, including surgeons, take coffee breaks and enjoy whatever snacks are available on a particular day. The nurses and surgical technicians bring these snacks on their own.
On that day, while waiting for my next operation, I went to the lounge to grab a cup of coffee. There on the snack table, I saw a half pan of pound cake. The other half had already been consumed. Pound cake being my weakness, I took a spoon and started scraping residue of the cake from the pan. A nurse came in the lounge and questioned why I was scraping the empty half of the pan rather than helping myself with the cake itself.
It was an Arabian Nights moment. Most stories in that classic start when one character questions another character about a certain situation, and a thread of story within a story begins.
I grew up in a lower-middle-class family in Peshawar. With the sudden death in 1944 of my father, a high-level government official, the family slid down a few rungs on the economic ladder, and our three-square meals became lean and less square. But the age-old custom of hospitality did not change. Guests were entertained with proper tea service and a pound cake, and other delicacies.
The cake I remember was a medium-sized round cake in the shape of a nomad’s round yurt and a dome measuring five or six inches in diameter. It was covered at the bottom and around the sides with thick confectionery paper. The top, like a round mountaintop, was bare. When the guests were done with the tea service, the only thing left was the paper that wrapped the cake. We would snatch the paper and would painstakingly scrape the paper for tiny, small pieces of cake that had stuck to the paper during baking. We could hardly mine a teaspoon or two for our effort. But that was enough to tingle our taste buds.
I told the story to the nurse in the surgery lounge, and she looked sad. She said she had no idea I grew up in abject poverty.
In all honesty, I did not grow up in abject poverty. Compared to some people living in our own town, we were rather well-off. We had adequate food, clothes to cover our bodies, and a roof over our heads.
In so many ways, my story was that of the poet Ibn Insha (1927-1978), who wrote the following short poem, which illustrates the periods of deprivation and affluence in the life of one person. Here is an English translation of the original Urdu poem.
When I was a small lad, with great expectations, I went to a fair. I wanted to have so many things, but my pocket was empty, and I couldn’t buy anything.
Now that those days of deprivation are in the past, the fair is still attractive and enjoyable. If I wish, I could buy every shop in the fair, or I could buy the world.
I don’t have the feeling of deprivation in my heart, but I am not that carefree young boy anymore.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English writer and essayist. His famous essay “Old China” illustrates the general sentiments that Ibn Insha expressed in his poem. In the essay, Lamb and his sister recall fondly when Charles wore a threadbare suit but could not afford a new one. And how they used to buy the cheapest tickets to the theater and would stand in the pit of the theater to watch the play. But now that they are well off, buying expensive theater tickets did not bring the joy they once enjoyed.
I think the Lambs were recalling my version of scraping crumbs off the pound cake’s wrapping.
The United States is the richest country in the world. One would think that with such affluence, there would be very little poverty in the country. But numbers tell a different story. In America, 11.5% (almost 38 million) are below the poverty level. There is scarcity amidst plenty.
There are men, women, and children who go to bed hungry. It is mind-boggling for many people outside the US to imagine such poverty in America. On the global level, there are more than 700 million people (10% of the world population) who are below the level of poverty. The United Nations defines poverty as someone earning less than $1.90 a day or, in Pakistani terms, a little more than 500 Rupees a day.
A few years ago, while on a trip to the Dominican Republic, I saw an impressive scene on a beach one early morning. Incidentally, the Dominican Republic occupies the eastern half of Hispaniola. Its western part is Haiti, a politically unstable country where poverty is rampant.
Set on the beach was a breakfast table for two. An attendant waited a respectable distance from the table to attend to a young couple’s wishes. On the same island, perhaps less than a hundred miles away to the west, were people eating what the natives call mud cookies to satisfy their hunger. They mix a little salt and cooking oil with the mud and make patties.
I could not comprehend a beachside breakfast luxurious table for two and mud cookies on the same island.
When I compare the poverty of my family with others, I realize, cake crumbs aside, we were definitely better off than many people in the world. Poverty is a relative term. It is a spectrum. My family’s slide on the economic ladder, Charles Lamb’s tattered suit and cheap theater tickets, and some Toledo children going to bed hungry are connected through an invisible thread of scarcity. It is only the matter of degree.
Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain holds emeritus professorship in cardiothoracic surgery in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences and emeritus professorship in the College of Arts and Letters, University of Toledo. He has been an op-ed columnist for the Toledo Blade and essayist for The Friday Times of Lahore, Pakistan
