Throwing Away Food
Sad to see this news come from a state that I’ll be soon closely associated with:
BHUBANESWAR: In a country where millions go to bed hungry, Rs 1 million worth of food meant as a holy offering at Orissa’s Jagannath temple was destroyed on Friday because a foreigner had entered it — an act seen as defiling the premises. The shrine administration decided to destroy the food that was prepared for offering to the deities, temple official Laxmidhar Pujapanda said. A mud pit was dug in the premises and the holy offering was thrown in it [source.]
While I am aware of the strong orthodox views of few Indian temples that practice such discriminatory behavior, I agree with Atanu’s viewpoint that as long as these temples aren’t public property, we cannot dictate who they should or should not allow inside their premises. I had ranted on the issue of Sabarimala temple sometime back. But at the same time, wastage of such colossal quantities of food pains me. Heck, even if such large quantities of food was wasted in a country where no one went hungry, I would still be bothered.
Perhaps it is the Indian tendency/tradition of conserving food due to social scarcity but it is nevertheless a noble one. If the temple authorities feared associating themselves with the ‘defiled’ food then they could have ‘conducted a yagna to disassociate’ (bear with me, trying to be a lil creative here) themselves from it and leave the food alone in a lonely corner outside the temple complex. I’m sure the ‘defiled’ food would find plenty of takers even in the most religious of towns. Ash tells me plenty of people from other religions come for the feast organized by the temple because the food is really good. They aren’t detected because they ‘look Hindu’. Now, the poor foreigner would have never thought his white skin would someday land him in trouble.
Abundance of food makes you appreciate it even less and statistics tell that almost 20-25% of food bought in America is wasted. Although we cannot control everyone’e behavior, I wish this number be a lot less in the future. Or perhaps we need to be deprived of it. Ah! as some user behavior analyst would say, duh!
“Throwing Away Food” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=1925] was published Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 8:00 am by Patrix, filed under Current Affairs, India, Observations, Religion, Society Culture, and tagged as Current Affairs, India, Observations, Orissa, Religion. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.
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I do not mean to sound vicious but this could only have come from the sick minds of what passes for preisthood in the temple.
They are, for all practical puposes, brats. To boot, they find it unpalatable that people find it hard to respect them.
One of them once cursed me and my entire clan with extinction when I didn’t give him ten bucks. :)
They live in reasonable plenty and appear blind to the outside world.
3 years ago replyVijay, yeah, and the pondas at the Puri Jagannatha temple are some of the worst. They’ve really soured my Puri temple experience.
I’d like to take my husband and in-laws there after our wedding but I’m really wary of what our experience will be like.
3 years ago replyAnother hijack of religion by the clergy.
3 years ago replyVijay, I agree. Priests usually in marquee temples tend to be extremely corrupt and orthodox and impose ridiculous rules even if the traditions or religion says no such thing. As Ash said, Jagannath temple is particularly infamous.
Santosh, such hijackings are irrespective of religion, right? Makes you wonder on the need for religion.
3 years ago replyMy better half is a devout Hindu and she performs puja everyday. But because of her advanced leucoderma she looks like a regular white-skinned person and often has a tough time getting into some temples in India.
Unfortunately this has not advanced my own atheist agendas in the household yet :(
3 years ago reply25% I think is an underestimate. One of my friends used to work at the food court, and used to tell me that her heart used to break everytime she had to throw out gigantic pizzas at the end of the day. Apparently they weren’t even allowed to take them home.
95% of temple priests are lunatics, anyway. I am suprised how they didn’t find a loophole rite and exploit it…probably because there weren’t any personal gains involved
3 years ago replyKiran, I can understand how difficult it must be for your wife. Sadly, we still refuse to be more inclusive and continue to tout the supremacy of our culture.
Sqrl, I bet the number is higher but I was thinking of food bought by households. The wastage is definitely more in commercial places. However, I cannot understand why they cannot give away leftovers. Liability issues probably.
3 years ago replyEvery religion comes with its set of stupid and crazy ideas. Wasting such quantities of food is neither funny nor should be acceptabel..someone shud throw these pandits in some starving country.
Having said that, we people across the world waste so much food that its not even funny.
Everytime we leave uneaten food at a restaurant… have you ever bothered to get it packed and give it to some starving person. Not many of us do that.
All food establishment across the country must be junking similar qtys allmost daily… then why are we not talking about them?
Reason: this is a piece of news and we all want to indulge in intellectual masturbation over it.
3 years ago replyHi…this is on a totally different subject.
Actually clicked on your Flickr photostream and saw the pics shot you have shot in NY. Have jsut returned from a trip to NY, so it was nice to see how you saw the city thru your camera. You must have visited during summer/spring…because the city looks so different in winter, specially Central Park…it looked so ‘grey’! Will send you the link to pics taken by hubby once I have uploaded them. I think you would be interested…the styles are quite similar.
Btw, your ‘Contact’ link isnt working.
3 years ago replyCinnamon, I agree that the issue of wasting food goes beyond this temple issue. I highlighted the temple case because it sets an example for its followers.
Shreya, I would love to see your NY photos when you get back. NYC is a wonderfully photogenic city and I can never tire of capturing it many times over even when I have visited it thrice now.
I fixed the Contact link. Thanks for letting me know.
3 years ago replyCinamon: Whoever said anything about intellectual masturbation? I am just mad coz they cursed me for ten bucks.
3 years ago replyNews flash, most ideas and opinions on the blogosphere fit that criteria.
3 years ago reply@ Vijay: i am so sorry. I know how irritating these curses can be.
@santosh: Yes i know.
May be the meaniing was lost… what i meant is that we waste so much food in our daily lives and we have never bothered about it.
And Vjay… to tell you a piece of news…. i am was not allowed to enter my family temple when i was single and my brother could. HOw sick can that be.
3 years ago reply