N. Raghuraman's column: Do our children know what food scarcity means?

Have you heard of the "war sandwich"? If not, welcome to the class, which is attended by more than two million students from around the world. She begins her cooking class by showing you a blackened gas stove, indicating that the house is affected by poverty. But her open-hearted laugh covers all poverty. She doesn't have flour, so she uses ground biscuits. You may be wondering where to get the biscuits when there is no flour? These biscuits were distributed by the relief team for the war affected people and she was somehow able to raise something for herself! That's why she smiles shyly and introduces you to the leftover material. When the sugar ran out, she would find sweetness in the dried fruits. When you watch his video, it's like getting a message from a world that most of us are unaware of. This 11-year-old girl is teaching herself to live and dream in the midst of devastation. While influencers dominate the internet with immaculate kitchens and great dishes, an 11-year-old girl from Gaza started posting her own cooking videos. These videos created a stir in the Wi-Fi space. Renaud Attalla is known to millions of people around the world for videos titled "Renaud from Gaza". Her stories began in 2023 with a kitchen. In one of the videos, she said, "We literally have nothing to eat!" There was a frightening truth in her viral videos. The smiles gradually turned into fatigue. The cheerful captions grew sadder. In the end, her cooking videos became a document of a widespread damage that had sparked hunger and a desire to survive. That's why her recipes include "war sandwiches", which are never made in a restaurant or kitchen in the common world. In May-June 2025, when more than two million people were watching her videos, suddenly she appeared in a video and simply said "goodbye" without any context. These words appeared alongside pictures of her sitting quietly with drooping eyes. Within minutes, comments started pouring in to know if he was safe? News channels picked up her story and reported that the world is worried about her. Despite this, she remained silent for weeks. Then suddenly, in October 2025, she reappeared with three words- "A New Chapter". The changes were clear. She had a smile on her face, she was whisking the solution in a shiny kitchen and her hair was covered in flour. Because of this, she was giggling. She was evacuated to a safe place in Europe under a humanitarian rehabilitation program and enrolled in a school. Today her kitchen is stocked with ingredients she once dreamed of having. The caption read, "When you have everything you need, cooking is something else. But I'll never forget what it felt like when I didn't have everything. His voice told what food scarcity means. Renaud's move to Europe gives him security, but his challenges are far from over. She is still a refugee on foreign soil, adapting to a new culture, lifestyle, and language. It will be difficult for that little girl to forget this shock, loss and eventual displacement. Yet she says in one of her recent videos, "When I cook I feel like I can make the world taste a little better." But at the same time, she never forgets to say the line, "With love from Gaza." Children have the right to be children. These simple and profound lines reflect his thoughts. The trick is that when your kids waste food or "throw" to eat, sharing Renaud's story will help you teach them what food means. It is a means of survival for many more than nourishing for a few.