By Ed Wright
On day two of Kingston University Student Union’s Global Festival students we are given a taste of India, as free food was handed out by students from the Kingston Sikh Society.
Hungry students crowded around the event for hours to get a taste of the free food on offer and all looked very grateful for it.
Chief organiser Asa Singh, a second year sports science student, said: “The concept of the free food is known as Langar. The idea is to feed the masses, which is what we’ve done here today.
“Free food is a blessing and the food is all blessed, usually in the temples, where they do this daily.
“You can go into any Sikh temple, on any day, and they do this. They do this just as a good deed. The food can be anything, it doesn’t just have to be what we served here today.
“We must have only spent £350 and we’ve fed at least 500 people here today, for free, so you can see that it works.”
Langar was introduced to India as a method of showing equality. Sikh temples, known as ‘Gurdwara’, would prepare the food, and people from all social classes would eat together, on the floor, to increase the feeling of solidarity.
Mr Singh went to to say that: “It is not the first time that we have done this, but the last time we did it in a room and it was not well advertised. It is much better outside and I think we will do it outside from now on.”
Harrison Lee, a third year games design student who tried the food, said: “It was delicious. I was a bit wary at first, because I’d never tried anything like it before but, in the end I felt bad for not paying for it.
“I wish they would do this every day, it was great. Everyone seemed to appreciate it.”