India, Dec. 12 -- My grandparents were among the millions uprooted by the Partition of India. They left behind their ancestral home in Montgomery, now in Pakistan Punjab, and arrived in Delhi as refugees with little more than the clothes on their backs. In the refugee camps, food was scarce, and every meal was a struggle. Later, they were allotted land in Jalandhar district - 100 acres in lieu of what they had lost across the border. Materially, they recovered, but the memories of hunger and deprivation remained deeply etched in their minds. My grandmother carried those scars for life. She would never allow a single morsel to go to waste. Every meal came with her gentle but firm reminder: "Clean your plate. Every grain of rice is the result of a farmer's sweat, and somewhere, someone is sleeping hungry tonight." To her, wasting food was not merely careless, it was a moral failing, a betrayal of both labour and gratitude. When I married, I entered a household that had not known the trauma of Partition or the deprivation of refugee life. There were always leftovers on plates, food casually discarded, meals half-eaten and forgotten. It disturbed me profoundly. Each uneaten portion carried not just the taste of waste but the echo of my grandmother's voice of a generation that had known hunger and learned gratitude the hardest way possible. Travelling abroad, I am often startled by the scale of food waste. In restaurants and cafeterias, trays of untouched food are tossed into bins without a thought. I have never been able to do that. If I cannot finish my meal, I carry it with me and find someone who might appreciate it. It is a small act, but one that honours the lesson my grandmother instilled - to respect food as both sustenance and symbol. Some countries have shown that change is possible when empathy meets policy. France, for instance, has made it mandatory for supermarkets to donate unsold food to charities rather than destroy it. In other parts of the world, community refrigerators, placed near restaurants and cafes, allow people to leave untouched portions for those who cannot afford a meal. Such practices transform individual conscience into collective responsibility. India, a nation of both abundance and hunger, can do the same. We need laws, apps, and local networks that make it easy, and expected, for restaurants, caterers, and households to share what they cannot consume. Technology can be a bridge, but compassion must be the foundation. Ultimately, it begins at home with awareness, gratitude, and empathy. Every grain left uneaten is a silent story of waste. Every cleaned plate, a quiet act of respect. My grandmother's lessons were born of loss, but they endure as wisdom. Food is not just nourishment, it is humanity, and hope. If we could all remember that, perhaps no one would have to go to bed hungry again....