Khichdi Country

I never ask the price of vegetables since I buy them from the same vendor whose prices, I know, are fair.  Yesterday, however, when I picked up two raw mangoes for making chutney, my vendor said to me for the first time in my year-long association with him, “Mangoes are ₹100 a kg.  Should I weigh both?”  He had already kept them on the balance which showed 400 grams.  Not wishing to appear an impoverished citizen in a country that is becoming a global superpower, I was about to put up a cavalier face and say, “Oh, it’s OK,” when Maggie (my wife) forestalled me by butting in very uncharacteristically, “Oh, yes, one’s more than enough.”  I swallowed the hurt to my patriotism and looked at her with the implied question, “How can you be so antinational?”  She was looking at the price list displayed on the shop’s wall.  It is mandatory, in Kerala, to display the prices.

Waiting for Khichdi

“That’s the cost of development,” I told her when we were alone in our car.  “Aren’t you proud to be living in a country which will soon have a lot of temples and statues costing thousands of crores of rupees?  The future generations will remember us as patriotic citizens who sacrificed their mango chutney and vegetable salad for the greater glory of the nation.”

She stared at me as if to make sure whether I had gone nuts.  I was serious, however.  Why don’t people like my wife realise that Hindustan has every right to leave its marks on the palimpsest of Indian history.  Don’t we have the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort and a hundred other things left by the Mughals?  Then we have Victoria Terminal-turned-Chattarpati Shivaji Terminal and Connaught Place-to-be-turned Veer Savarkar Sthal and a hundred other things left by the British.  If the invaders could leave all those marks, shouldn’t we – we ourselves – leave our own marks?  We should happily pay ₹100 per kg or more for vegetables and whatever price each day demands for petrol and so on.  That is patriotism.  That is the duty of every patriotic citizen. 

As soon as we reached home, the TV news channel cheered us with the news about the elevation of khichdi as the ‘brand food’ of the country.  The hike in the price of cooking gas was the next headline.  The water for the tea boiled faster than usual, I think, hearing the latest price of cooking gas.

“But isn’t khichdi the food of the sick?” Maggie asked as she brought two cups of tea and sat down with me to listen to the news.  These days we watch only the news because nothing entertains us more. 

Neither Maggie nor I had heard about khichdi until we started working in a residential school in Delhi which served khichdi to those students who suffered from some ailment which was certified by the resident doctor as worthy of khichdi.  I never tasted it since the doc never got an opportunity to certify me as worthy of khichdi.  The very look of the food which looked messy never appealed to me anyway and hence I was happy to stay far away from it. 

Now our great leaders are certifying us all worthy of khichdi.  A country of khichdi eaters!  Patriotism surged in my veins.  I vowed to put aside my distaste and cultivate an unconditional love for khichdi.

“But I don’t know how to cook khichdi,” said Maggie when I told her that soon the whole of Hindustan will be put on a khichdi diet. 

“Then call up one of your friends in Delhi and learn the recipe,” I urged her fervently.

Will there be both CGST and SGST on khichdi?  I wondered as Maggie was tapping the number of one of her Dilliwali friends to learn the recipe of Hindustan’s brand food.