Skip to main content

Rotten Onions


Husband came home jubilantly because he had managed to get a kilogram of onions at half the market price, thanks to Sheila didi.

“Rotten,” said Wife in her characteristic laconic way after opening the precious packet of onions.

“Really?”  Husband was agitated.  Agitation was his characteristic way.  “How could the government sell onions at half the market price?  It has to be rotten.  No dealer will sell onions at that rate even to the government in these days when governments are dictated to by traders.  The question is why the media didn’t pick it up.”

“See this,” said Wife.  She showed him the front page report on his favourite newspaper, The Hindu, which said, “Delhiites say Govt selling ‘rotten’ onions”. 

No wonder there was no rush for onions today, mused Husband who would not have bought the onions otherwise.  But he had to justify himself before Wife. 

So he said, “I wonder why the media doesn’t pursue the matter beyond the obvious.  For example, where did the government get the onions from?  Was it from people who were hoarding it with the malicious purpose of raising its price and then sold it to the government when it started rotting?  The big farmers or the wholesale traders made a deal with the government and the government cheated the people.  Simple, you see, darling.  Cheating is what life is about today.  If you don’t cheat, you are a fool.  The media just wants to prove that we are fools...”

Wife understood.  Her husband was trying his best not to appear a fool before her.   She smiled.

 

PS. Not from personal experience.  Inspired by the front page report in The Hindu.
Labels:

Comments

  1. MridulaOctober 30, 2013 at 7:24 PM

    I saw that report and a nice take on the sad state of affairs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 30, 2013 at 7:38 PM

      I'm yet to find out where in Delhi they sell the govt supplied onions :)

      Delete
  2. KhushbooOctober 30, 2013 at 7:33 PM

    For the first time in months, talking about onions made me smile :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Poonam KhandujaOctober 30, 2013 at 9:27 PM

    Nice Satirical Take. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousOctober 30, 2013 at 10:48 PM

    Indeed Govt. are cheating the Common People,What Govt. is doing is simply not acceptable on their part,They make money by fooling Indians..That's what they had been doing all these years and will continue to do in future..

    But I guess I am lucky to have Onions at Rs 60/kg and not the rotten one.. :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 9:43 AM

      Onion is a powerful political weapon. It has revealed its claws and fangs earlier too just before elections.

      Good you're lucky.

      Delete
  5. On A Good LengthOctober 31, 2013 at 12:19 PM

    Amazing read on Onions :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownOctober 31, 2013 at 12:49 PM

    One of my friends was joking about renaming "Paneer Do Payaza" to "Pyaz Do Paneer" as onion is more valuable than paneer now :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:31 PM

      "If people don't have onion, let them eat paneer," said the queen!

      Delete
  7. RAN IN JAN October 31, 2013 at 1:13 PM

    i didnt read the article though, but it was good to read about the issue. I have started to eat without onions.I feel how the Jain's were so wise about not choosing onions.lol. Great read sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:34 PM

      The Jains know their onions, Ran.

      I have seen people asking for 100 grams of onions from shopkeepers and vendors!

      Delete
  8. ekta khetanOctober 31, 2013 at 3:01 PM

    Very well written. To tell you the truth, I know vendors who supply onions to mart and market. They are paid a very paltry sum of amount wherein these hypercity etc sells it to us at sky rocketing price.

    Dirty politics!
    www.numerounity.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:36 PM

      When politics and commerce become bed mates, you can't expect anything better, dear friend.

      Delete
  9. SidOctober 31, 2013 at 3:23 PM

    We often forgive the media for its doings, despite it being the fourth pillar of democracy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:37 PM

      The fourth pillar is meant for supporting the other 3: the aristocrats, the politicians, and the traders!

      Delete
  10. UnknownOctober 31, 2013 at 4:01 PM

    Good thing you mentioned that it's not a personal experience :P :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:38 PM

      Ha ha ha, thanks Pankti.
      The fact is that I have often got into similar traps :)

      Delete
  11. AditiOctober 31, 2013 at 4:05 PM

    Very well written....loved you brought about some entertainment in these rotten times!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 5:40 PM

      We can look forward to more rotten times, Aditi. Today's papers report that the prices of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas are going to be raised. Subsidies will slowly be removed from everything. Private firms will cry hoarse over financial crunch and cut salaries...

      I hope to entertain you in those times too :)

      Delete
  12. UnknownOctober 31, 2013 at 6:55 PM

    Ha ha ha, this is a nice one on the onions.The first time onions brought a smile instead of tears!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Mon.EspritOctober 31, 2013 at 7:13 PM

    Perfect ending, exactly how it really is :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2013 at 9:16 PM

      See how onions can make us creative. thanks for the appreciation.

      Delete
  14. AnonymousNovember 5, 2013 at 1:54 AM

    [ Smiles ] Lovely article. However, cheating is highly dishonest!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 5, 2013 at 9:53 AM

      Hasn't cheating become an integral part of politics and trade today? The worst thing that happened in the last 2 or 3 decades is the nexus between traders and politicians.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

Two Women and Their Frustrations

Illustration by Gemini AI Nora and Millie are two unforgettable women in literature. Both are frustrated with their married life, though Nora’s frustration is a late experience. How they deal with their personal situations is worth a deep study. One redeems herself while the other destroys herself as well as her husband. Nora is the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House , and Millie is her counterpart in Terence Rattigan’s play, The Browning Version . [The links take you to the respective text.] Personal frustration leads one to growth into an enlightened selfhood while it embitters the other. Nora’s story is emancipatory and Millie’s is destructive. Nora questions patriarchal oppression and liberates herself from it with equanimity, while Millie is trapped in a meaningless relationship. Since I have summarised these plays in earlier posts, now I’m moving on to a discussion on the enlightening contrasts between these two characters. If you’re interested in the plot ...
11 comments
Read more

Hindutva’s Contradictions

The book I’m reading now is Whose Rama? [in Malayalam] by Sanskrit scholar and professor T S Syamkumar. I had mentioned this book in an earlier post . The basic premise of the book, as I understand from the initial pages, is that Hindutva is a Brahminical ideology that keeps the lower caste people outside its terrain. Non-Aryans are portrayed as monsters in ancient Hindu literature. The Shudras, the lowest caste, and the casteless others, are not even granted the status of humans.  Whose Rama? The August issue of The Caravan carries an article related to the inhuman treatment that the Brahmins of Etawah in Uttar Pradesh meted out to a Yadav “preacher” in the last week of June 2025. “Yadavs are traditionally ranked as a Shudra community,” says the article. They are not supposed to recite the holy texts. Mukut Mani Singh Yadav was reciting verses from the Bhagavad Gita. That was his crime. The Brahmins of the locality got the man’s head tonsured, forced him to rub his nose at t...
14 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more