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India and Rodomontade

My village: the rodomontade is on the way

Tapioca was a staple food in Kerala as potato was in Ireland.  It went out of fashion when the Malayali learnt not to trust politicians and decided to make his fortune outside the country.  The public school-educated young generation in Kerala today doesn’t appreciate the pristine tang of tapioca.  My grocer in the village sells a few kilograms of the starchy root every day and I am one of the frequent buyers. 

“The price has gone down very much but I am selling it at ₹20 a kg,” he told me as he was weighing one kg for me.  I was silent.  I usually don’t talk much except in the classroom.  “I can buy it for ₹7 a kg from the farmer.  But the poor man won’t even get his transporting charge let alone the cost of cultivating it.  So I bought it for ₹15 a kg.”

“You did the right thing,” I said.  “It’s a pity that the farmers have been reduced to this situation,” I added to myself.

“Shashi Tharoor’s latest contribution to the Indian cacophony is apt,” I said to my wife as we were back in our car having purchased all the grocery we needed.

“Rodomontade!” Maggie repeated Tharoor’s new addition to the nation’s upper class entertainment. 

“Isn’t that what the nation is today?” I asked.  “Just boastful, inflated talk and deeds learnt from a man who rodomontaded silly things like his 56 inch chest.  Where’s all the development he promised?  Instead we have hatred and violence.  And a whole lot of rodomontade about some millennia old civilisation …”

“Sir, give me something, a little help,” a handicapped man stood outside the car.  I had just strapped the seat belt and started the engine.

He was a handicapped man who used to smile at me every time I entered the grocery shop.  He used to stand at the entrance doing nothing but smile at people.  I gave him ₹20. 

“What will I get with this?” he asked.

“One kg of tapioca,” I said as I shifted the gear.

“Jesus will bless you.”  I heard the man’s blessing though an old Malayalam film song had automatically started on the music system of the car.


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