Knowing your Onions

Today, more than at any other time in the history of mankind, it has become critical that you know your onions. And tomatoes. And vegetables.Because like India's crisis in 1991 which forced us to take some gold to the IMF and get some cash in return, the onion seems ready to take households to the brink.

I am an unabashed onion fan. I have been eating them since I was a kid. I get irritated if there are no onions in my plate at mealtimes. I ate onions by the dozens in my engineering college mess, as that was the only unlimited item on our plates, apart from rice and sambar. I used to cut onions and tomatoes for our lunch table even after I got married-that speaks volumes about the extent of my love of onions.

I am sure the onion farmers must be smiling, and onion traders and other hoarders must be having a belly laugh right now, but us, poor eaters, are close to tears, even when we are not cutting the onions up. This is gross "be-insaafi", as Gabbar would have put it. A modern version of Sholay might actually have an episode about the great onion robbery instead of the train robbery sequence.

Academics could write about 'the great onion theory of governance' about collapse of governments caused by the humble onion, because a couple of governments did actually take a tumble when prices sky-rocketed in the past. Here's hoping we don't get to that stage! Happy munching!