Dark Side of Colourful Cultural Events in India

Indians are by nature known to spend lavishly on a number of functions such as engagements, marriages, birth celebrations, birthday & anniversary celebrations, promotion & retirement functions, 13th day after death and various religious festivals. People belonging to all strata of society take their life-time savings and spend generously on these events.

Lots of people get invited to these functions. However, the problem is we do not ask people whether they are planning to attend or not. The host does not get any feedback and has no clear idea of how many people will attend the function. So they end up making enough for a large gathering. This results in wastage of food, cooking gas and manpower. The way food is wasted in these events is an eye-opener for everybody. Also, people like to taste everything as much as they can take, without caring whether they can consume the food completely.

There are thousands of people who can hardly manage a meal a day and sleep on empty stomachs. We are also familiar with the sight of children who scavenge garbage bins to find something to eat. While so many people are going to sleep hungry, we waste so much unnecessarily.

Every time food inflation comes as a topic for discussion, formal or informal, it almost always ends up with people blaming the government for price inflations and corruption. Why don’t we reflect on our lifestyle and understand how our own choices are causing or enabling the problem? We always find someone else to be at fault. If we save all this food, it would make a large amount of extra food available, thereby reducing food demand and eventually reducing prices.

Our true Indian culture is not in showing-off but in sharing, saving, reducing waste and making the most out of minimum resources.

References:-

1. www.merinews.com
2. www.foodwastage.in

Mrs. Shefali Mendiratta
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology,
Poddar International College,
Jaipur.