The gift of food

Today, people all over the world who are Hindus or believe in Hinduism celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. The idol of Lord Ganesh is worshipped and on the last day, it is taken out in procession and submerged in the river or sea.

Lord Ganesh is the son of Lord Shiva and Parvathy Devi. He is the remover of obstacles and is worshipped first before worshipping any other deity or starting anything new. 'Prathama Vandana' translated as the first to be worshipped.

Our village temple deity is Lord Ganesh. So, today, we attended the puja and partake in the 'Anna daan' or food gift. Throughout the year, people donate money to contribute towards this maha Anna daan or large food gift day. People of other religions also contribute. After all, gifting food is the best gift, it is said.

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An expert cook and his helpers were roped in and by noon, they were ready to start distributing the food which consisted of hot brown rice, sambar(curry), cabbage curry, papad, pickle, buttermilk, and payasam(kheer). People stood in queue with a plate in hand and the volunteers served them food and they could either sit on the chairs or eat where they pleased. There were a thousand people who ate the food today.

Donating food to all is a great feeling and I am happy that we have also contributed toward it. The crowd was manageable and the cleaning of the plates was done efficiently. People who ate cleaned their plate in the wash area and dipped it in a huge bowl and it was cleaned again by a helper. It was taken to the desk where the next set of people would collect it to get food.

Community feeding does a lot of good in the sense that it helps build a sense of goodness and also instills human values in the next generation as well. It also helps people who cannot afford a good meal and the older generation who can skip cooking for a day and enjoy such events.