Picture Credits – Hariharan Kumar
Sonepat, Haryana. The holy grail of commercial food. NOT.
From the ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Marshall Eriksen’s beautiful description of the first burger bite, to every single food advert we’ve ever seen, the delicious exotic food that we’ve always wanted has arrived here at JGU – the Biswamil food festival BITE!
But in sullen contrast to the buzz of the evening, there are a few questions that arrive at casual introspection.
What gives us the right to enjoy this bourgeois privilege?
With over 17 food outlets, from Dunkin’ Donuts, Wow Momos, Sandwich Factory, Bunny’s Pizza and more, the little corner of the football field is transformed into a different universe where the only actions are that of eating food and the only vocabulary comprised of ‘yums’ and ‘Oh, wow!’s . And not only is the good food everywhere, but the air is filled with an electricity of music, games, movies playing in the background, and conversations both pointless and lovely made over the ‘food for thought’ that we sorely needed.
Looking around me, I see people changing their definitions of university, from mere academics, sports, and partying, to a different community space. Individuals connecting, with the simplest of incidences, from passing the change and food to an unknown stranger, to picking up a fallen bill and handing it to a friend, society is formed in ways that not many usually imagine. But in sullen contrast to the buzz of the evening, there are a few questions that arrive at casual introspection.
What gives us the right to enjoy such bourgeois privilege, in this microcosmic bubble of a campus, where around us the food vendors are going broke, the farmers are dying, and the people are struggling for the least recognition, let alone profit? For in the midst of all the fun under the night sky and the waxing moon, our (dis)connection to our campus environment grows apparent. Will the trash be cleaned by us, in the morning? Will the field be left as beautifully electric, in the silent hours of dawn when all of us are asleep in our well-paid-for hostel beds?
Perhaps it will be – for it is not pessimism but hopeful optimism that we must look to, that just as some individuals can ruin a university, some individuals can redeem it. That the few volunteers and Sodexo workers who stay behind at night, or wake up a few hours earlier, to return the space of the field where the fair takes place to its lovely environment, those are the people who JGU is redeemed by.
The festival spans two days – September 14th and 15th. Smiles are shared, food is eaten, hungers are sated… and hopes for a responsible privilege created.