Poison in Food

I love grapes. Right from the grapevines to the final product of grape fruits in the farms, and furthermore the wine that some of the most creative people invented from that pearly fruit, everything about grapes sounds like some medieval witchcraft to me.

I have been seeing grapes on sale at the rate of Rs100 for 2 kg wherever I go these days. I didn’t go beyond 50 km from home on these days. That’s why the offer surprised me all the more. Grapes in my rural neighbourhood at such low rates sounds an alert. So I didn’t buy any of those. But when I found them at a higher price this evening in a hypermarket, I bought half a kg after enough dawdling.

“Are these sweet?” I asked the staff.

“Sweet and sour,” she said. “A bit sour,” she explained when I looked sceptical.

When I tasted them at home, after soaking them in salt water for half an hour and then washing them three times in running water as instructed by Maggie, they tasted like the pesticide in the vegetables I usually get from the nearby markets.  I ate only a few of those grapes. But the odour of chemicals rises from my viscera even as I am typing this out.

One of the things Maggie loved was fish. But we stopped buying fish for ourselves because any fish you buy in Kerala tastes of chemicals. Deadly chemicals. Fish chews like leather. We stopped buying fish for ourselves. But you will find me in a fish stall twice a week. My cats want fish though I have been trying to convert them to eating Amazon-supplied cat feed. They do relish those pellets supplied by Amazon’s meticulous delivery personnel. But they seem to need some natural food too and I don’t want to deprive them of that. My concern is t’s difficult to please even the cats with the fish that’s available these days in my neighbourhood. Sometimes my cats just shun the fish I give them, raw or cooked.

Poison is what we get in the name of food.

A knowledgeable friend of mine tells me that poison is what they give us in hospitals and medical stores these days. This is called the return of the great ancient civilisation!

I throw a challenge to the vegans in India. Check the vegetables sold in Kerala and tell me honestly how much of them are really edible.

They won’t dare do that. Because India has become fake. Absolute fake. Prove me otherwise instead of feeling cocky sentiments in your religious genes.

Speaking of cockiness, cocks in India are fakes too.

I challenge the right wing in Modi’s India: Give me one genuine thing. Apart from crocodile tears in an ancient Vadnagar tea cup. Please.