Once upon a time, there was a village boy, Dhiraj. He was the youngest son of his family. The family was supported by the income of a buffalo naming Kali and three goats, Heme, Kheme and their mother Seti. As the youngest son of the family, Dhiraj was loved by everyone. In the passage of time, Dhiraj became very stubborn due to excessive love.

                                                                                                            When his mother used to call her children to eat milk of their Kali, Dhiraj started to demand more than his siblings. Otherwise, he used to cry for more than hours. Later, he started to show his attitude to his parents and started to demand more yummy foods. Uff!!!The mother was quite frustrated by the stubborn behavior of Dhiraj and she decided to take him to Kalimai temple. She believed that some type of ghost has captured the spirit of her son and can be cured by going to temple and praying the goddess.

                                                                        After finishing the worship of Kamalamai, the mother gave Dhiraj some food to eat. After having the first taste, Dhiraj threw the food as that was not so mouthwatering. Now, his mother became angry and punished him badly. Stubborn Dhiraj started to cry very loudly. After about half an hour, perhaps there was no anger left on his mother. She came near Dhiraj, touched his head very softly and carried her son to home. The stubborn boy didn?t eat any food that night and frequently asked her mother in rude manner why she had beaten him? The mother said nothing that time.

                                                                                    A beautiful woman in red sari (a dress) came and tried to feed Dhiraj. But Dhiraj threw the food rudely and loudly quarreled that he will not eat anything. The situation became terrible, the woman became tomato eyed and everywhere cooked rice was seen to be thrown.

                                    Mommy! Dhiraj suddenly woke up with a shouting voice. He was frightened and hugging his mother so tightly. The mother asked him what was happened. The boy described his dream. Mother smiled and told that the woman in your dream was goddess Kamalamai, ?I think this dream has symbolized the fling of food that you did yesterday? she added. ?You must apology to her otherwise she will punish you? mother told.  As Dhiraj was born in a religious family environment, he thought over the dream throughout the night and requested his mother to visit the same temple tomorrow as he was feeling guilty.

                                                                                                                                                Next morning, they visited the same temple and Dhiraj promised that from that day he will never waste/throw any type of food and he will always respect the food as well. From that day, the boy never wasted/threw the food and he always started to think before eat.

                                                            One day when Dhiraj was at the bank of a river for sightseeing, suddenly the same incident occupied his mind and he again thought over the dream. When he threw the food prepared by his own mother, his mother punished him and he concluded that when one wastes the food prepared by the Mother Nature, she will certainly punish the person.

                        870 million of people go hungry every day while one third of the food produced is wasted due to the inappropriate practice.  Recently published report of FAO reveals that 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted annually which is equivalent to the total food produced in entire Sub Saharan Africa. The report reveals that the food produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water corresponding to the annual flow of Volga river, Russia and it is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of GHGs in the atmosphere. Therefore, we must save the food in order to maintain our environment healthy as well.

`                                                           The monetary value of this food wastage becomes equivalent to $750 billion annually (excluding fish and sea food).  Actually, this is not merely the wastage of food, but also the wastage of hard work of a farmer, the work of agriculture labor their time and the resource input as well.

Man is the most intelligent creation of nature and this is the time to prove. All the stakeholders- food producers (farmers and fishers), food processors, food sellers and the local and national governments, individual consumer must make changes at every link of human food chain to prevent food wastage and recycle and reuse when we can?t prevent the wastage. This will certainly bridge the gap between food wastage and hunger.