A life which almost everyone imagined after 3 friends went on a road trip to Spain. "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" was not only a movie but an emotion and an adventure that everyone would want to experience. The movie has a song ‘Ik Junoon’ in which they were attending La Tomatina where they all were playing with tomatoes. But, do you know that this festival is being celebrated from early 50’s?

It is celebrated from 1945 in the Valencian town of Bunol, in the East of Spain. It is held on the last Wednesday of August. In this festival people throw tomatoes on each other for fun and entertainment purposes and get involved in the tomato fight. This year they would have been celebrating their Diamond Jubilee on 26 August but due to COVID-19 pandemic in Spain the event got cancelled.

The incident behind the festival is from 1945 when a group of young people were attending Giants and Big-Heads figures parade. The young boys decided to take part in a parade with musicians, giants and large-Heads figures. The electricity of jovialities induced one participant's big-head to fall off. The participant flew into a match of rage, began hitting the whole thing in his course. There had been a marketplace stall of vegetable that fell victim to the fury of the crowd. People started to pelt each other with tomatoes till the nearby forces ended the fruit battle.

The following year, some young people engaged in a pre-planned quarrel and brought their own tomatoes from home. Although the local forces broke it up, this commenced every year subculture. For the following years, the youngsters instance had unwittingly made records for lot of human beings. But in the early 50’s it was banned in the city even then no one could stop them from getting attracted towards it and stopping them from celebrating.

Following this the government had to lift up the ban and the festival was again legalized with more participants. Since then it is celebrated every year and is known throughout the rest of the Spain. And in 2002 it was declared festival of International Tourist interest due to its success.

Every year approx. 20,000 - 30,000 pounds of tomatoes are used in the world’s biggest food fight known as La Tomatina. But this year not even a single tomato will be imported to Bunol for celebrating La Tomatina.

This is not the first time that this festival has been cancelled. 1st time it was cancelled in 1957 due to political reasons and now in 2020 for the 2nd time due to the prevailing situation of COVID-19. But they have found an alternative to celebrate their 75th anniversary. The usage of the hash tag #TomatinaChallenge, the Bunol city Council has created a new piece of history for the competition, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary on August 26, with the aid of tough people to record a short (horizontal) video of themselves “receiving a shot from a tomato, spilling tomato, or anything that arises from the imagination, “to rejoice the digital Tomatina,” read a assertion issued with the aid of the council.

This festival is not something that can be celebrated with masks, gloves and social distancing. As the total number of cases in the country stands at 3, 86,000 and 28,838 deaths. With increasing COVID-19 cases, the chances of getting affected is highly at risk. The number of participants is also great which makes impossible to celebrate the festival by their physical presence. That is why a modern approach is taken to celebrate their traditions.