After successful picturization of La-Tomatina festival of Spain in an Indian movie Zindagi na Milegi Dobara (2011), the Indian cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Mysore, Chennai have seen the LIMITED EDITION demos of this festival in prestigious Hotels and farm houses in the past 2 months. In Delhi, it was postponed due to food wastage issue and is facing protests from some NGOs and a new debate is rising whether these kind of festivals should be allowed in India or not. I have given it an ample thought and have written those thoughts from the neutral point of view (as far as I can) in the form of a conversation between two persons, person A and person B, who are in favor and against of the Tomatina celebration in India, respectively.
Person A:
Are you coming to La-Tomatina celebration next week in Hotel XYZ?
Person B:
No, this is just a wastage of food in a country like India.
Person A:
What is wrong in celebrating it with throwing tomatoes? It is celebrated in Spain too.
Person B:
Spain is a developed country but India is developing. Here lots of people are deprived of nutritious food.
Person A:
You mean to say that we should not celebrate Holi and Diwali too as lots of people are deprived of colors and crackers and cannot enjoy it?
Person B:
You are misinterpreting. People don't eat colors and crackers as these are meant for leisure purpose but tomatoes are meant to be eaten.
Person A:
We live in a free India and everyone is free to chose their way of recreation without harming anybody physically and mentally.
Person B:
Freedom doesn't mean licence to waste food. Children are dying because of malnutrition and wastage of this kind cannot be acceptable in a developing country like India.There are more than 37% people living below poverty line according to the government of India. We can feed these tomatoes to them instead of wasting it.
Person A:
Well, Spain is not ideally developed either as 19.8% people living there are below poverty line but still they do celebrate it and at the same time, not all people celebrate it. Even it is not an official festival. Its just that some people in Bunol gather and continue the 50 year old trend just for a change from their routine life and that is what we are aiming at. Also, poor people do not eat tomatoes often, their food is grain and onion. The grain which is rotting in the government godowns but the govt. rejects its distribution to poor people for free and the onion which sometimes costs 100 Rupees per Kg and takes the governments down. So instead of concentrating on tomatoes, its better you fight for grain and onion which form the real meal of deprived ones.
Person B:
All right. I will take this point but Spain is still the 21st largest economy in the world but we aren't. If we waste tomatoes like this then how would even the normal man be able to buy the tomatoes?
Person A:
For your Information, I would like to tell you that India is forth largest producer of tomatoes in the world and is exporting the processed tomatoes in the form of ketchup and other products all over the world. So, if we use a few dozen out of those thousands of tomatoes of inferior taste, that are either used for some (not all) ketchups or thrown away, for harmless fun then what is the problem?
Person B:
Don't you think that this is just a show-off and still a wastage of food where NGOs are trying to make people aware of not wasting the food?
Person A:
Tell me, have you ever taken any bath in swimming pool in your club?
Person B:
What it has to do with the matter at hand?
Person A:
Just answer my question.
Person B:
Yes, I love it. Its very relaxing and releases all my tensions.
Person A:
Well, don't you think that the amount of 100s of liters of water that you wasted in bathing, for which only a bucket of 17 liters is enough, could have been used to feed lots of people who are deprived of water for drinking, bathing and washing clothes & utensils? Even I am sure that you use the water from the boring at your house which reduces the under-water table which is the reason why government is unable to supply water to houses of geographically higher areas. So, its better that first you practice what you preach and then touch the topics that matters the least.
Person B:
To clear my side on the water thing, I would like to tell you that we have the septic system at our home that sends back the rain water in the ground instead of wasting it on the road like your house. Regarding the tomato thing, it is not a matter of least concern as you said. This may be a few dozen matter for you but you do not see the wide picture here as you have confined your view to just an event that is going to be organised in a hotel in one of the city in India but my dear friend, there are 28 states (and 7 union territories) in India with every state having at least 5 cities on average and every city has 5 major hotels that can afford to organize such events. Now, if we calculate, there will be 28*5*5 = 700 hotels that can (will) organize the event if it gets popular with time among high class people and this will just not need a few dozen but trillion dozen of tomatoes and I am sure that this much quantity will be available only if HOARDING is done which, of course, is very much prevalent in India.So, this food wastage festival is going to be a matter of concern in the long run.
Person A:
I respect your views but I think that what you just said is only the unnecessary magnification of what really appears to be. Got to go now. See you after the event. Good bye.
Person B:
Good Bye.
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