The other day I found myself playing host to the young American friend ofanother friend. I took him to the KalaGhoda Arts Festival and then later we all went out for dinner. He is veryyoung, let me stress again, only 21, and visiting India for the first time. Myfriends and I are all working professionals, working for a couple of years now,and used to the good life, by and large. At some point, while we were waitingfor dinner, he pulled out his camera and showed us a picture of two peoplestanding next to a table piled full of what looked like large bulky things."It’s cheese," he said, while we nodded politely, "About $3,500 worth. And we got it all from the dumpster."
Instant recoil of the five Indian heads present.
We wrinkled our noses, some of us laughed, and all of us began to look slightlysqueamish. It turns out the young American is part of a rather large movementhappening in the US (but mostly New York City, from what I gathered) calledFreeganism. They’re people who don’t like to support consumerism andmaterialism and so, get their food out of garbage dumpsters. Mostly thesupermarket kind, where they throw out expiry dated food, but also theresidential kind. Our dining companion had found lots of bread, a lambskintrenchcoat, alcohol and vitamins from various garbage dumps.
Being a young Indian, I couldn’t resist the next question. "What do yourparents have to say about this?" He smiled, he was really veryunselfconscious about the whole thing even while we were laughing in horror,"My mother knows," he said, "But she’s said not to bring it upat family gatherings."
I did a little netsurfing this morning to find out whether this actually existedor whether this was the party story he dined out on. Nope, there’s actually a Freeganwebsite which lists their manifesto:
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"Instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able."
They just don’t spend money. Not on food, and from what he said about acouple of his friends who live in abandoned buildings, not on rent either."Squatters are people who occupy and rehabilitate abandoned, decrepitbuildings. Squatters believe that real human needs are more important thanabstract notions of private property, and that those who hold deed to buildingsbut won’t allow people to live in them, even in places where housing isvitally needed, don’t deserve to own those buildings."
Right.
I don’t think he got why we were all reacting so strongly. In India, whereeven sharing food is anathema, taboo, jhoota, the idea of actually goingthrough garbage is nauseating. "What about rats?" I asked. "Oh,rats avoid the dumpsters," he said. "What about cockroaches?""Well, you just brush them off."
I tried to explain to him that the very materialism he was denying was the onethat was serving to feed him. In other words, if everyone was a freegan, no onecould be a freegan. "Why don’t you go to a farm and grow food then, ifyou’re opposed to buying it?" I asked. "We’re just against thewaste of food," he said and added, "In an ideal world, there would beno space for freegans.""
The funny thing was, after a little while, it began to make sense. Why was thereso much food and other things being wasted? Why couldn’t we too start fishingin garbage bins for our dinner? It seemed like the ultimate revenge against the‘haves’. But then many years of conditioning kicked in and we just shook ourheads at the theory, knowing we’d recount it later.
"You should write a book," I told him, "You could call itFreeganomics.""
