Ole! Delhi set to go tomatoes

Spain comes to Delhi this Saturday as the city hosts its own version of the tomato festival. Inspired by La Tomatina, featured in the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 15,000 revellers are planning a day of wet, squishy fun at a farmhouse in Chhatarpur.

Spain comes to Delhi this Saturday as the city hosts its own version of the tomato festival. Inspired by La Tomatina, featured in the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 15,000 revellers are planning a day of wet, squishy fun at a farmhouse in Chhatarpur.

HT Image

In Spain, the festival is held in the town of Buñol in Valencia and lasts a whole week.

But in this age of soaring prices and galloping inflation, the food fight has not gone down too well with many. “Why waste food? Can we not use the money to feed poor children,” asked Raghav Gupta, in response to the invitation on Facebook.

“This kind of wastage is immoral. In a country where people live in sub-human conditions, wasting so much money and food is not correct,” said Kavita Srivastava of the Right to Food Campaign.

But the company behind the party, Flashback Entertainment Pvt Ltd, doesn’t think it’s wrong. “We waste so much food at weddings. This is nothing,” said Aditya Jain, the organiser.

The event has found supporters as well. “If we can waste water during Holi and call it a festival, we can celebrate this way as well,” said Avantika Shah, a Delhi University student.

Jain couldn’t tell HT how many tomatoes were going into the event. The vegetable is selling for R25-30 a kg these days while the wholesale rate is Rs 12 a kg.