How Relevant is LA TOMATINA to India

LATOMATINA-TO CELEBRATE OR NOT TO CELEBRATE

We Indians celebrate the festival of Holi which is the festival of colours. We spray vibrant colors on each other and share our joys. This festival is a manifestation of our culture and traditions. We reverently value this festival and celebrate whole heartedly. Economically too, sale of colors earn a livelihood to those who deal in them. Comparably La tomatina is also a kind of manifestation of the culture in Spain and many European nations. It is a festival where tomatoes are crushed and threw upon each other. Offcourse it is equally entertaining as our holi. It is very suitable for the countries with low population and considerably higher tomato surplus production. Moreover these countries are more prosperous and wealthy. However such blatant, irresponsible misuse of resources and our own cultural bankruptcy has raised troubling questions.

Though it all began in spain, similar festivities were organized across the world in columbia,US and the like. The festival was recreated for the song Ik Junoon (Paint it red) from the 2011 Hindi film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

In Indian context however such imported exotic festivities throw very relevant questions. We misuse our purchasing power in every possible way. For instance in the case of bangalore most of such horticultural products come from drought prone kolar region which is plagued by flouriosis ( a condition where excess amount of flouride is found in ground water owing to over-exploitation. This causes osteoporosis which results in physical deformities and bone wasting both in children and adults rendering the workforce both of present and future ineffective)ironically food produced at such huge environmental and human costs is literally “toyed” around.

Culturally too it is a paradox that when our own cultural practices like joint family system, harvest festival is relegated to the theme fine dining restaurants while we are busy aping the west blindly.

Economically too such blatant waste of precious resources contribute to undue increase in prices of food products inadvertently accentuating existing food inflation. India fares below Pakistan and Bangladesh in the global hunger Index. Tomatoes kept aside; there are people who hardly eat rice every day. We can see government bringing in the food security to the poor population. So vegetables and fruits are even more costly items in the poor people’s food basket. In this background how relevant is an event like La tomatina which not only creates temporary tomato shortage but also inflates the price of the tomatoes that makes unaffordable to the poor people.

Organisers of the latomatina have claims that they are buying poor quality unconsumable tomatoes near Kolar.In reality, tomatoes in some areas are wasted either due to middle man tactics or due to lack of storage infrastructure .So the remedy lies in addressing the storage problems and correcting the supply side mismatch and not in such frivolous excuses for wastage. We people also aptly decide in participating in the events that can potentially affect the food economy in our areas. Let’s not procrastinate our responses but timely discourage such activities adeptly so that no such events are organized in the near future

Hence it can be concluded that though globalization and argument of melting pot of cultures can be substantiated to certain extent such shameless conduct-economic, cultural, environmental can only be decried in the strongest of terms. Every event has to semantically appropriate in its celebrations. Celebrations should not keep many people starve in hunger. Instead of giving fillip to such commercial events. Let’s make events like Holi and many such local festivals achieve grandeur and significance.

Sudhanva and Prashanth