In search of a more mundane cause for concern

It is funny how sometimes things pass by in blurry, disjointed fashion, like a motion picture in fast-forward, recorded on what is now the archaic magnetic-tapped video cassette. A letter from a dear friend's spirited father, revolutions named after a flower, spiraling food prices, a humiliating defeat for Bangladesh cricket, a restaurant with the best dumplings and the worst service, a call from a long-lost co-conspirator, piles of pages and a glaring monitor, love and other intoxicants, a song, a fierce battle in Zawiya, a toothache and a funny story, a dream and familiar faces, blur and voices, more blur... If you've ever tried looking back on an ordinary week, you probably know what I mean.

Few of these things cause concern, like rising global food prices. For developing nations such prolonged soaring of prices above levels beyond the incomes of a large section of the population can have devastating consequences. The heart-rending account of a construction worker in Dhaka says it all. His earnings of barely $2 dollars a day is woefully inadequate to feed his family of three, as price of rice has increased substantially in recent months. Three meals a day which was once a basic requirement is now a luxury, subjecting his children to chronic malnutrition. As children grow up in different parts of the Third World in such conditions, an entire generation is being raised underdeveloped, both physically and mentally,severely curbing the future prospects of a better world. Besides genuine supply-side concerns tied to nature's wrath at times, there are also issues fueling this inflation that deserve attention, like the loose monetary policies of the developed world, particularly the US where the devaluation of the greenback to reduce US trade deficit comes at the cost of increasing commodity prices, which are priced in dollars. Moreover, speculation in the commodities market, the aim of which is to profit from price fluctuations, benefit from price instability and further deteriorate the situation. Panic buying by nations in world markets add to the mess. Things are to be done and that too without delay, so that better tomorrows arrive without hesitation and my concerns remain limited to more mundane things, like hair loss and whether I would indeed be bald by the time I am thirty five.