A couple of days back something happened during the lunch hours in my office that set off a chain of thoughts in my mind. As a consequence, I am penning down my thoughts in this blog post with a hope to achieve my dream of a "Perfect Eutopian World", where nobody would sleep hungry.
With a coupon in my hand I was standing in the queue awaiting my turn in the office food court. A hungry stomach and over-stimulated taste buds compelled me to get the coupon which was worth a plate of Butter Naan, Mushroom Babycorn Masala with complimentary Salad and Fried Papad. Being a bit choosy and selective in my eating habits, I requested the canteen boy not to serve the complimentary items on my plate and serve only one serving of the curry on my dish. But, before I could finish my sentence, the canteen boy literally poured all the items like an automatic machine on my plate. I lost my cool and exploded - "Bhaiya... Hum manaa kar rahe hain k Papad, Salaad nai dene ka... Fir bhi aap de rahe ho... Aur yeh sabzi bhi kam karo !! Khaana WASTE karwaana achha lagtaa hai kya ???". The canteen boy sulkily took away the refused items and served my plate with the cuisines that I wanted with the quantity enough for me to eat.
Many people would argue that I lost my cool on a trifling matter. But how many of us are doing something for the cause ? The farmers who are growing the food, sleep hungry with their families. These people are overburdened with agriculture loans on their head. Many of them commit suicide when they fail to repay loans due to crop failure. Every now and then, we can read about it in newspapers. The food that we carelessly waste is the same food that took months to grow in a field consuming air, water and hard labour of an unknown poor man who is God to me. It is the same food which our canteen boy was callously serving with an assurance that some of it would definitely end its journey in a garbage bin. Disrespect to that food meant a disrespect to God which I could not stand.
It is true that our canteen boy is an overburdened person who does not have the time nor patience to keep track of every milligram of food served. But, he is not the only overburdened person on this planet doing a monotonous job. Many of us belong to the same category of boring monotonous workers.
A couple of years back, I had a chance to visit the Shirdi Sai Baba shrine in Nashik with my friends. After our darshan, we came to the common dining hall - Sai Prasadalyaya. It is a huge hall with benches and desks where rich and poor can eat alike at affordable cost. Before the entrance to the hall, there is a signboard saying - "Please do not waste food.". A volunteer was present there, making rounds to serve the devotees the sacred food (Sai Prasad). While he was serving, I had a feeling that he might pour the entire food on my plate, making it impossible for me to consume everything he has served. So, I requested him to stop, the moment I felt I got enough. To my surprise, his hands stopped immediately as if it was controlled by a computer connected directly to my vocal cords. As I am penning down my thoughts, I am feeling a sense of respect for that overburdened canteen boy of Shiridi Sai Baba shrine, who made sure that the instructions on the signboard outside are followed to the letter. Apart from the respect towards that man, I am also feeling a sense of disgust towards our sense of hypocrisy. While the food served at Shirdi Sai Baba shrine is Prasad which cannot be wasted, the same food when served inside the office canteen can be thrown to the black colour waste bag placed in a trash bin. This is the hypocrisy of the so-called "Educated White Collared" imbecile creatures like us. The idea is to take as much as you can consume regardless of the money paid. But nowadays, people think it in monetary terms i.e. "If I am paying X rupees, then it is my birth right to get the appropriate quantity of food on my plate, regardless of my consumption capacity." In utter frustration, I think that one of our political leaders was perfectly correct in saying - "Poverty is a State of Mind.".
When a few paper bills of currency become more important than the edible food itself, then certainly it depicts our miserly attitude and mental bankruptcy. This miserly attitude of ours has started an unhealthy trend of serving more than what can be comfortably consumed. This trend is visible everywhere - be it restaurants or road-side stalls. Our imperialistic colonial masters have inculcated a false sense of civilized culture, that eating to the last grain of the serving depicts our misery. It is a fad which is religiously followed by the so-called "civilized" people like us. This obnoxious behaviour can be easily seen in a restaurant where people order more than what they can eat because they have the money to pay for the bill. The consequence is that resources of a nation are wasted which causes inflation - Huge amount of Credit Card bills (Money) chasing Small amount of Products (Food). We wash our hands off our duties and responsibilities and blame it on "Sarkaar". What can the Government do to control inflation, when the citizens themselves are busy wasting the nation's resources ??
The above poster nails it. I rest my case.
