India, Ignoring Women at its Peril

An edited version of this article appeared as an op-ed in the South China Morning Post of 14 February 2011.

On 7 February a young girl in India had her nose, arm and ear chopped off. Her crime: resisting rape. Seventeen-year-old Sarika had gone out with her friend when three men pounced upon her. When she raised an alarm the men tied her up, mutilated her and left after threatening her not to inform anybody about the incident. The girl has since undergone several rounds of surgery to correct the effects of the brutal attack.

It happened in Fatehpur, located on the sacred Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The fertile Gangetic plain is considered the cradle of Hinduism and Fatehpur itself finds mention in ancient Hindu texts called the Puranas. The juxtaposition of heinous violence with religious places is not unusual – precisely why this case is noteworthy for both its terrible brutality and its ubiquity.

India is a patriarchal society. The good Indian girl needs a man at each stage in her life – in the form of father, husband, and son. She does not question her father’s authority, participates in an arranged marriage, and when she reaches her in-law’s house with sufficient dowry to ensure that she is not burnt, proceeds to beget male progeny. In the event that she conceives a girl child, there is always recourse to female foeticide or infanticide. Which accounts for the skewed gender ratio in India: 933 girls:1000 boys according to the 2001 Census.

In the event that she is harassed the good Indian girl is taught to ignore, look the other way, do anything but avoid calling further attention to herself. The National Crimes Record Bureau (2007) shows that total crime against women has increased by 12.5%. Yet she is instructed to weigh the cost of a few gropes, molestation, rape versus the shame of a public case. Those who don’t listen deserve a lesson – as did Sarika. That she did not allow herself to be gangraped incensed the men enough to mutilate her.

Cutting off a woman’s nose is a common treatment meted out to difficult women. It has its roots in the Ramayana where Rama’s brother slashed the nose of a seductress. When I worked in Etah, another impoverished district of Uttar Pradesh, on a rural development project, one village woman who assisted us was perennially sheathed in a voluminous shawl that revealed only her eyes. It was only later that I learnt the reason why. Apparently, her irate in-laws had hacked off her nose since they suspected her of speaking to a strange man. Clearly, being a poor woman in rural India is hazardous.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s second-largest state economy. It has been growing at 6.29% since 2004, an economic feat that is credited to Mayawati, its Chief Minister. Mayawati, like Sarika, is a Dalit woman. However, that is where the similarities end. Dubbed the Dalit Queen, Mayawati belongs to that other subset of women in the subcontinent – dynastic successors, benefiting from either their fathers or mentors.

This provides a skewed picture of female leadership in the subcontinent – after all Benazir Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister of an Islamic state, Indira Gandhi was the longest-serving Prime Minister of India, and Bangladesh has been ruled by two women, one the daughter of its founding father, the other the widow of an assassinated President. The truth is that their gender is incidental.

Mayawati, who has similarly profited as a political protege, has used public money on commissioning statues of herself, her mentor and elephants, her party symbol. She has done little to check the high crime rate in Uttar Pradesh which tops the list of lawless states in India.

Currently a Hindi film, No one Killed Jessica, is showing in India. It depicts the true story of a barmaid in Delhi who refused to serve a drink to a drunk bully. Slighted, he shot her dead. Despite the presence of multiple witnesses the accused were acquitted. Subsequently, the story was picked up by media and after intense pressure the case was reopened. Eventually, it took a public movement and seven years to get justice for one woman.

India ranks 114^th out of 134 countries covered by the Global Gender Gap Index. It is last among the BRIC countries on the index, and second to last in South Asia, ahead only of Pakistan. The Indian economy has been growing at an average of 8% for several years, yet its rank has remained unchanged since 2006. In India’s much-touted growth story, its women are sadly missing.

Stringent deterrents and effectual legislation are needed to ensure that girls like Sarika get prompt justice. No nation can prosper if half its human capital, its women, are ignored, or worse, discriminated against.

India, Ignoring Women at its Peril

An edited version of this article appeared as an op-ed in the South China Morning Post of 14 February 2011.

On 7 February a young girl in India had her nose, arm and ear chopped off. Her crime: resisting rape. Seventeen-year-old Sarika had gone out with her friend when three men pounced upon her. When she raised an alarm the men tied her up, mutilated her and left after threatening her not to inform anybody about the incident. The girl has since undergone several rounds of surgery to correct the effects of the brutal attack.

It happened in Fatehpur, located on the sacred Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The fertile Gangetic plain is considered the cradle of Hinduism and Fatehpur itself finds mention in ancient Hindu texts called the Puranas. The juxtaposition of heinous violence with religious places is not unusual – precisely why this case is noteworthy for both its terrible brutality and its ubiquity.

India is a patriarchal society. The good Indian girl needs a man at each stage in her life – in the form of father, husband, and son. She does not question her father’s authority, participates in an arranged marriage, and when she reaches her in-law’s house with sufficient dowry to ensure that she is not burnt, proceeds to beget male progeny. In the event that she conceives a girl child, there is always recourse to female foeticide or infanticide. Which accounts for the skewed gender ratio in India: 933 girls:1000 boys according to the 2001 Census.

In the event that she is harassed the good Indian girl is taught to ignore, look the other way, do anything but avoid calling further attention to herself. The National Crimes Record Bureau (2007) shows that total crime against women has increased by 12.5%. Yet she is instructed to weigh the cost of a few gropes, molestation, rape versus the shame of a public case. Those who don’t listen deserve a lesson – as did Sarika. That she did not allow herself to be gangraped incensed the men enough to mutilate her.

Cutting off a woman’s nose is a common treatment meted out to difficult women. It has its roots in the Ramayana where Rama’s brother slashed the nose of a seductress. When I worked in Etah, another impoverished district of Uttar Pradesh, on a rural development project, one village woman who assisted us was perennially sheathed in a voluminous shawl that revealed only her eyes. It was only later that I learnt the reason why. Apparently, her irate in-laws had hacked off her nose since they suspected her of speaking to a strange man. Clearly, being a poor woman in rural India is hazardous.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s second-largest state economy. It has been growing at 6.29% since 2004, an economic feat that is credited to Mayawati, its Chief Minister. Mayawati, like Sarika, is a Dalit woman. However, that is where the similarities end. Dubbed the Dalit Queen, Mayawati belongs to that other subset of women in the subcontinent – dynastic successors, benefiting from either their fathers or mentors.

This provides a skewed picture of female leadership in the subcontinent – after all Benazir Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister of an Islamic state, Indira Gandhi was the longest-serving Prime Minister of India, and Bangladesh has been ruled by two women, one the daughter of its founding father, the other the widow of an assassinated President. The truth is that their gender is incidental.

Mayawati, who has similarly profited as a political protege, has used public money on commissioning statues of herself, her mentor and elephants, her party symbol. She has done little to check the high crime rate in Uttar Pradesh which tops the list of lawless states in India.

Currently a Hindi film, No one Killed Jessica, is showing in India. It depicts the true story of a barmaid in Delhi who refused to serve a drink to a drunk bully. Slighted, he shot her dead. Despite the presence of multiple witnesses the accused were acquitted. Subsequently, the story was picked up by media and after intense pressure the case was reopened. Eventually, it took a public movement and seven years to get justice for one woman.

India ranks 114^th out of 134 countries covered by the Global Gender Gap Index. It is last among the BRIC countries on the index, and second to last in South Asia, ahead only of Pakistan. The Indian economy has been growing at an average of 8% for several years, yet its rank has remained unchanged since 2006. In India’s much-touted growth story, its women are sadly missing.

Stringent deterrents and effectual legislation are needed to ensure that girls like Sarika get prompt justice. No nation can prosper if half its human capital, its women, are ignored, or worse, discriminated against.

An Indian Summer, Sales Spiel, and a Life Lesson

Destination: Dohad, Gujarat (read boondocks)

Purpose: Sales trip (ostensibly in pursuit of earning my laundry stripes!)

Serendipity: A Life lesson (entirely unanticipated, in the mode of Serendip-Sri Lanka)

Summer time in Gujarat gives an altogether new meaning to heat. It was May; I had donned my usual protective gear: huge sunglasses and a cotton dupatta wrapped burqa-fashion. The car window was rolled down to allow for fresh air, that stung mercilessly.

We were driving from Baroda to Dohad, an arid dusty stretch. Do-had: 2-borders. A matter-of-fact name for a nondescript town bordered by the desert of Rajasthan, and the tribal region of Madhya Pradesh. What exactly was I doing, rattling down a searing tarred highway in a groaning Ambassador car with a 45°C sun burnishing bright over me? My company sold detergents for a handsome living – enabled by an antiquated rule of non-ac cars for Sales tours. This was likely driven by a Calvinesque belief in the power of suffering to build, simultaneously, character and sales. 

I, engineer-IIM-grad, could have been working with a global bank, an a-c office with potted palms and polished floors. But no, I had wanted to learn ground realities about my consumer before I sat in the ivory tower of Brand Management. Therefore, at campus placement, I had accepted with alacrity the offer of Area Sales Manager. However, during those long journeys down Gujarat highways I often wondered when the real world would get too real for me.

After a four-hour journey we reached my Distributor's house, an old haveli whose rambling innards housed a joint family and a couple of godowns. Govindbhai, my Distributor, came from a family of grain merchants. Being a distributor was not as remunerative as the traditional family business but it did something for his status in town.

Perfunctorily I enquired about Sales – the reports were with me but an unexpected response was usually guaranteed!

"Surya Devta’s kindness, madam," he offered with a smile.

The reference to Sun God was Govindbhai's reverential take on my Company's, and therefore my, Summer Sales Spiel: more heat equals more sweat equals more dirt equals more washes equals more detergent equals more sales. Simplistic, but it worked, especially in rural India where, despite the heat and grime, people have a penchant for wearing white.

Of course, I had to be selective about the application of this logic as I had discovered during my first few months on the job. Declining sales in summer season were explained by an ingenuous twist to the equation: more heat equals water shortage equals less washing! Sales, as I had figured, is nothing to do with logic. It is about relationships: a fluid web of constantly changing dynamics, with the ASM, Distributors, Sales team, and Retailers as the nodal points.

We spent the next two hours reviewing Sales details over endless cups of tea. Then Govindbhai broached the topic of nashta.

After rounds of demurring from my side, and energetic protestations from him, I found myself seated at a ten-seater dining table on the first floor of the haveli. The spread on the table was mind-boggling: a cheerful smorgasbord of papad, dhokla, undhiyo, lentil, kadhi, three types of vegetables, lightly flavored basmati rice, hot-off-the-stove-rotis, yoghurt drink, and sliced mango. Truly, a feast for the Lady ASM from Bombay.

I still found it a little discomfiting. I say still because this happens every time that I make a visit. Sitting at the table with the men I worked or interacted with - the Sales Officer, the Distributor and his male relatives - while the women cooked and served from the kitchen. The women of the house would eat later, that was the custom - I would be politely informed when I suggested they join us. I had partaken many such meals but the disconcerting feeling never left me. Seated at that table I was on a level plane with the men: I was acknowledged as their equal. This recognition, however, distanced me from the women, and did not balance my equation with them.

After lunch I went to the kitchen to thank the women. It was big and airy. There were five women ranging from seventeen to seventy inside. They examined me with frank curiosity and proceeded to quiz me about my family, my home in Bombay, who managed it when I travelled, what about the cooking?

Meanwhile, I learnt that they spent most of their time in the kitchen. Feeding a family of fifteen was like feeding an army, the grandmother informed with pride. The agenda consisted of moving from one meal to the next: arms wrestling with atta dough, expertly sifting grain for possible pebbles, gently rolling out thin rotis, frying papad over just the right heat, chopping vegetables into florets or cubes, preparing the seasoning. The wealth of tradition was passed down from the matriarch to the bahus. The granddaughter of marriageable-age was apprenticed into learning.

'The women in the kitchen' – yeah, I boxed them – were so different from me, and yet  alike. We managed our respective worlds with expertise and skill, but the worlds themselves were entirely different...

Something was bothering me and it was during the market visit, amidst detergent bars and sales chatter and more tea with retailers, that my mind supplied the answer. I had been fortunate to have the choice of which world to adopt, they had not. I felt a sense of empowerment because I had the ability to switch from one world (the-all-male-dining-table-world) to another (kitchen-cocoon-women-world) when I wanted. That was not something I could see either my male counterparts, or the women within the kitchen, doing.

After the visit, at four in the evening, the sun still bright, we were ready to start the return journey to Baroda. Govindbhai, however, seemed strangely hesitant to let us go.

"A small favour, if you would please, madam?" he said.

I nodded.

He looked at me nervously, shifting his gaze from me to the ground. "My daughter, who is in Class 8, is back from school She would like to meet you… You see, she wants to be an engineer when she grows up."

Back again at the dining table – this time though I was facing specific questions of a very determined and curious girl. She soaked up all the answers but it was I who got a life lesson: in a dusty little town, from inside a traditional haveli with its airy kitchen and no study, it is possible for a young woman to think different. 

The sun was setting as we drove back from Dohad. The rays glinted off the Gulmohar flowers and seemed to cast a halo around the entire tree. Did I mention that I like this tree a lot? In the sweltering heat of the Indian summer it stands tall and green, bursting forth with fiery red flowers – a cheerful respite against a monotone background. I remember that journey because I noticed quite a few Gulmohar trees on the way back.

This post has been submitted to the Indiblogger Cleartrip "My Purpose" contest. Hope you enjoyed it :)

An Indian Summer, Sales Spiel, and a Life Lesson

Destination: Dohad, Gujarat (read boondocks)

Purpose: Sales trip (ostensibly in pursuit of earning my laundry stripes!)

Serendipity: A Life lesson (entirely unanticipated, in the mode of Serendip-Sri Lanka)

Summer time in Gujarat gives an altogether new meaning to heat. It was May; I had donned my usual protective gear: huge sunglasses and a cotton dupatta wrapped burqa-fashion. The car window was rolled down to allow for fresh air, that stung mercilessly.

We were driving from Baroda to Dohad, an arid dusty stretch. Do-had: 2-borders. A matter-of-fact name for a nondescript town bordered by the desert of Rajasthan, and the tribal region of Madhya Pradesh. What exactly was I doing, rattling down a searing tarred highway in a groaning Ambassador car with a 45°C sun burnishing bright over me? My company sold detergents for a handsome living – enabled by an antiquated rule of non-ac cars for Sales tours. This was likely driven by a Calvinesque belief in the power of suffering to build, simultaneously, character and sales. 

I, engineer-IIM-grad, could have been working with a global bank, an a-c office with potted palms and polished floors. But no, I had wanted to learn ground realities about my consumer before I sat in the ivory tower of Brand Management. Therefore, at campus placement, I had accepted with alacrity the offer of Area Sales Manager. However, during those long journeys down Gujarat highways I often wondered when the real world would get too real for me.

After a four-hour journey we reached my Distributor's house, an old haveli whose rambling innards housed a joint family and a couple of godowns. Govindbhai, my Distributor, came from a family of grain merchants. Being a distributor was not as remunerative as the traditional family business but it did something for his status in town.

Perfunctorily I enquired about Sales – the reports were with me but an unexpected response was usually guaranteed!

"Surya Devta’s kindness, madam," he offered with a smile.

The reference to Sun God was Govindbhai's reverential take on my Company's, and therefore my, Summer Sales Spiel: more heat equals more sweat equals more dirt equals more washes equals more detergent equals more sales. Simplistic, but it worked, especially in rural India where, despite the heat and grime, people have a penchant for wearing white.

Of course, I had to be selective about the application of this logic as I had discovered during my first few months on the job. Declining sales in summer season were explained by an ingenuous twist to the equation: more heat equals water shortage equals less washing! Sales, as I had figured, is nothing to do with logic. It is about relationships: a fluid web of constantly changing dynamics, with the ASM, Distributors, Sales team, and Retailers as the nodal points.

We spent the next two hours reviewing Sales details over endless cups of tea. Then Govindbhai broached the topic of nashta.

After rounds of demurring from my side, and energetic protestations from him, I found myself seated at a ten-seater dining table on the first floor of the haveli. The spread on the table was mind-boggling: a cheerful smorgasbord of papad, dhokla, undhiyo, lentil, kadhi, three types of vegetables, lightly flavored basmati rice, hot-off-the-stove-rotis, yoghurt drink, and sliced mango. Truly, a feast for the Lady ASM from Bombay.

I still found it a little discomfiting. I say still because this happens every time that I make a visit. Sitting at the table with the men I worked or interacted with - the Sales Officer, the Distributor and his male relatives - while the women cooked and served from the kitchen. The women of the house would eat later, that was the custom - I would be politely informed when I suggested they join us. I had partaken many such meals but the disconcerting feeling never left me. Seated at that table I was on a level plane with the men: I was acknowledged as their equal. This recognition, however, distanced me from the women, and did not balance my equation with them.

After lunch I went to the kitchen to thank the women. It was big and airy. There were five women ranging from seventeen to seventy inside. They examined me with frank curiosity and proceeded to quiz me about my family, my home in Bombay, who managed it when I travelled, what about the cooking?

Meanwhile, I learnt that they spent most of their time in the kitchen. Feeding a family of fifteen was like feeding an army, the grandmother informed with pride. The agenda consisted of moving from one meal to the next: arms wrestling with atta dough, expertly sifting grain for possible pebbles, gently rolling out thin rotis, frying papad over just the right heat, chopping vegetables into florets or cubes, preparing the seasoning. The wealth of tradition was passed down from the matriarch to the bahus. The granddaughter of marriageable-age was apprenticed into learning.

'The women in the kitchen' – yeah, I boxed them – were so different from me, and yet  alike. We managed our respective worlds with expertise and skill, but the worlds themselves were entirely different...

Something was bothering me and it was during the market visit, amidst detergent bars and sales chatter and more tea with retailers, that my mind supplied the answer. I had been fortunate to have the choice of which world to adopt, they had not. I felt a sense of empowerment because I had the ability to switch from one world (the-all-male-dining-table-world) to another (kitchen-cocoon-women-world) when I wanted. That was not something I could see either my male counterparts, or the women within the kitchen, doing.

After the visit, at four in the evening, the sun still bright, we were ready to start the return journey to Baroda. Govindbhai, however, seemed strangely hesitant to let us go.

"A small favour, if you would please, madam?" he said.

I nodded.

He looked at me nervously, shifting his gaze from me to the ground. "My daughter, who is in Class 8, is back from school She would like to meet you… You see, she wants to be an engineer when she grows up."

Back again at the dining table – this time though I was facing specific questions of a very determined and curious girl. She soaked up all the answers but it was I who got a life lesson: in a dusty little town, from inside a traditional haveli with its airy kitchen and no study, it is possible for a young woman to think different. 

The sun was setting as we drove back from Dohad. The rays glinted off the Gulmohar flowers and seemed to cast a halo around the entire tree. Did I mention that I like this tree a lot? In the sweltering heat of the Indian summer it stands tall and green, bursting forth with fiery red flowers – a cheerful respite against a monotone background. I remember that journey because I noticed quite a few Gulmohar trees on the way back.

This post has been submitted to the Indiblogger Cleartrip "My Purpose" contest. Hope you enjoyed it :)

This article, a paean to the onion amidst the current onion crisis in India, featured as an oped in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune of 20 January 2011. I am reproducing it below as it appeared on the NYT website. Enjoy! 

I.H.T. OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

My Empire for an Onion

By MANREET SODHI SOMESHWAR

Published: January 19, 2011

To govern a country, know your onions.

In 16th century India a cook in the kitchen of the Mughal emperor Akbar accidentally added two portions of onion to a dish which went on to become a great hit. Thus was born dopiaza, literally onion twice over, a dish cooked in onion sauce that remains immensely popular to this day and has been successfully transplanted to Britain as well.

Except, if you wanted to cook it in India today, you might once again wish to seek royal patronage (or settle for a recipe that required no onion). With the vegetable selling at 85 rupees (about $2) a kilo, up from 10 rupees six months back, the staple of the average Indian household has gone extortionate.

The onion is rather ubiquitous in Indian food. Roughly chopped, it is an essential accompaniment to the sparse meal of the poor, while its braised, pureed, sauteed and garnished avatars surface in the meals of all others. Muthi piaz — onion smashed with a fist — is de rigueur at roadside eateries throughout the country, and sirkawala piaz — onions in vinegar — are as essential to any table as salt and pepper.

So integral is the onion to the Indian way of life that it has its own mythology. Ayurveda, traditional medicine native to India, claims onion is diuretic, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and anti-pigmentationary. Highly regarded as an aphrodisiac in ancient India, it was banned to Hindu widows.

In the sizzling heat of the subcontinent, the onion is called upon for its cooling properties. This was brought to me forcefully when I began my sales training in the plains of Central India in summer when the average day temperature is 45 degree centigrade, fueled by a hot tropical wind called Loo. Since my work required me to visit 40 grocery stores in one day, I was advised to keep an onion with me, preferably on my person, or in my sales satchel.

By way of explanation, my supervisor showed me his bag, where an onion sat shriveling in one corner. He made his point further by requesting a laborer to allow me a peek at the folds of his turban — sure enough, tucked within was a red onion.

Legends have grown around the pungent bulb. Shivaji, the fearsome Maratha warrior who took on the might of the Mughals, was reputed to eat a lean diet of unleavened bread with raw onions, as opposed to the effete Mughals, who gorged on twice-cooked onion dishes.

To add to the woes of the Mughals, a holy man, Baba Buddha, when served a simple meal by the wife of a Sikh guru, smashed the onion and predicted that her son would one day similarly crush the tyranny of the empire. Obviously, the humble vegetable is an underdog’s ally.

For the runaway price of onions today, the government has blamed heavy unseasonal rains, but poor agricultural productivity, lack of adequate infrastructure for storage and transport, and deficient government investment are equally to blame.

So what is the average Indian to do? Use cabbage and radish as substitute. And protest. Effigies of the agriculture minister have been burnt. Opposition leaders adorned with onion garlands have held rallies.

A novel protest had Santa Claus handing out onions on Christmas eve. Meanwhile, enterprising businessmen are giving free onions with the purchase of televisions, cars, motorcycles and tires.

Rising onion prices have historically felled governments. In 1980, Indira Gandhi ousted the ruling government by appearing at election rallies with strings of onions. The message was clear: If you can’t manage the price of onions, how do you manage the country? A recent poll showed that the Congress Party would lose its parliamentary majority were an election to be held now.

The government is scrambling to bring the price of onions down. It has banned export of onions, turned to Pakistan for imports, and the prime minister has held cabinet meetings on the issue. Pakistan complied briefly before turning hostile, and now India is threatening in turn to halt cement exports.

It was always understood that you could knock next door for a bowl of sugar, some salt, an onion. With the current price of the vegetable, that would be akin to asking the neighbor for their family jewels. No wonder Pakistan is not responding.

We need to keep the peace in our neighborhoods. In the interest of social cohesiveness, and its own survival, the government needs to fix the onion price pronto.

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is a writer for the South China Morning Post and author of “The Long Walk Home.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 20, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune.

This article, a paean to the onion amidst the current onion crisis in India, featured as an oped in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune of 20 January 2011. I am reproducing it below as it appeared on the NYT website. Enjoy! 

I.H.T. OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

My Empire for an Onion

By MANREET SODHI SOMESHWAR

Published: January 19, 2011

To govern a country, know your onions.

In 16th century India a cook in the kitchen of the Mughal emperor Akbar accidentally added two portions of onion to a dish which went on to become a great hit. Thus was born dopiaza, literally onion twice over, a dish cooked in onion sauce that remains immensely popular to this day and has been successfully transplanted to Britain as well.

Except, if you wanted to cook it in India today, you might once again wish to seek royal patronage (or settle for a recipe that required no onion). With the vegetable selling at 85 rupees (about $2) a kilo, up from 10 rupees six months back, the staple of the average Indian household has gone extortionate.

The onion is rather ubiquitous in Indian food. Roughly chopped, it is an essential accompaniment to the sparse meal of the poor, while its braised, pureed, sauteed and garnished avatars surface in the meals of all others. Muthi piaz — onion smashed with a fist — is de rigueur at roadside eateries throughout the country, and sirkawala piaz — onions in vinegar — are as essential to any table as salt and pepper.

So integral is the onion to the Indian way of life that it has its own mythology. Ayurveda, traditional medicine native to India, claims onion is diuretic, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and anti-pigmentationary. Highly regarded as an aphrodisiac in ancient India, it was banned to Hindu widows.

In the sizzling heat of the subcontinent, the onion is called upon for its cooling properties. This was brought to me forcefully when I began my sales training in the plains of Central India in summer when the average day temperature is 45 degree centigrade, fueled by a hot tropical wind called Loo. Since my work required me to visit 40 grocery stores in one day, I was advised to keep an onion with me, preferably on my person, or in my sales satchel.

By way of explanation, my supervisor showed me his bag, where an onion sat shriveling in one corner. He made his point further by requesting a laborer to allow me a peek at the folds of his turban — sure enough, tucked within was a red onion.

Legends have grown around the pungent bulb. Shivaji, the fearsome Maratha warrior who took on the might of the Mughals, was reputed to eat a lean diet of unleavened bread with raw onions, as opposed to the effete Mughals, who gorged on twice-cooked onion dishes.

To add to the woes of the Mughals, a holy man, Baba Buddha, when served a simple meal by the wife of a Sikh guru, smashed the onion and predicted that her son would one day similarly crush the tyranny of the empire. Obviously, the humble vegetable is an underdog’s ally.

For the runaway price of onions today, the government has blamed heavy unseasonal rains, but poor agricultural productivity, lack of adequate infrastructure for storage and transport, and deficient government investment are equally to blame.

So what is the average Indian to do? Use cabbage and radish as substitute. And protest. Effigies of the agriculture minister have been burnt. Opposition leaders adorned with onion garlands have held rallies.

A novel protest had Santa Claus handing out onions on Christmas eve. Meanwhile, enterprising businessmen are giving free onions with the purchase of televisions, cars, motorcycles and tires.

Rising onion prices have historically felled governments. In 1980, Indira Gandhi ousted the ruling government by appearing at election rallies with strings of onions. The message was clear: If you can’t manage the price of onions, how do you manage the country? A recent poll showed that the Congress Party would lose its parliamentary majority were an election to be held now.

The government is scrambling to bring the price of onions down. It has banned export of onions, turned to Pakistan for imports, and the prime minister has held cabinet meetings on the issue. Pakistan complied briefly before turning hostile, and now India is threatening in turn to halt cement exports.

It was always understood that you could knock next door for a bowl of sugar, some salt, an onion. With the current price of the vegetable, that would be akin to asking the neighbor for their family jewels. No wonder Pakistan is not responding.

We need to keep the peace in our neighborhoods. In the interest of social cohesiveness, and its own survival, the government needs to fix the onion price pronto.

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is a writer for the South China Morning Post and author of “The Long Walk Home.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 20, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" - that is how Winston Churchill famously described Russia in a radio broadcast in 1939. While the bear remains difficult to fathom to this day - read the Wikileaks docu-dump on Russia if in doubt - the Indian elephant is no less obfuscating to an observer. Sample the headlines from today, 17 January 2011, Times of India: US eyeing $1.4bn deal with India for attack copters; Senior cops threatening me, says woman jail warden who helped Banda rape victim; God as guard: Bank opens 'lockless' branch; 'wife-beater' diplomat recalled from UK; Mob tries to burn HIV+ couple...


However, in that broadcast, Churchill added a caveat: "but perhaps there is a key". The key he is referring to is the means to unlocking an understanding of Russia. For anyone looking to comprehend the puzzle that is India, one key I'd recommend is a book: The Story of My Assassins by Tarun Tejpal. Aravind Adiga may have snagged the Booker and Vikas Swarup the Oscar but to Tejpal's book goes the prize for providing one excoriating, unflinching opener into the conundrum that is India.

I reviewed the book for SCMP on its debut and recommend it strongly. A note of caution though: it's not for the faint-hearted.

The Story of My Assassins

by Tarun J Tejpal

Harper Collins

HK$ 185

***1/2

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

FICTION

Tarun J Tejpal, author of The Story of My Assassins, could arguably be one of India’s most notorious journalists. As editor of Tehelka (which means ‘sensational’ in Hindi), a magazine founded on the premise of investigative journalism, he conducted a sting operation in 2001 exposing corruption in India’s defense acquisitions. This earned him the government’s hostility and the public’s attention. Voted one of India’s 50 most powerful people by Business Week, praised by V S Naipaul as “brilliantly original”, viewed as a crusader by the average Indian, the author of the bestselling The Alchemy of Desire is definitely multi-faceted.

The Story of My Assassins leverages off Tejpal’s own experience when, in the aftermath of the sting operation, the journalist was provided with security cover because of a perceived threat to his life. In the book too the protagonist – editor of a struggling magazine, and a lothario with a skewed moral compass – is alerted to a potential assassination attempt when the police descend on his house and cordon it off. Apparently, the police have foiled an attempt to kill the journalist; beyond that there is no information forthcoming. In a limbo of intrigue, impasse, imperil, the protagonist – his name is never revealed – wonders whether the entire scheme is an elaborate set-up to stymie his journalistic forays, the government he is bent on exposing now coddling him against some presumed assassins. When he sights the five hit men – variously named Chaaku, Kabir, Kaliya, Chini, and Hathoda Tyagi – for the first time in court he is further mystified as to the linkages between him and his nondescript would-be-assassins.

Meanwhile, his paramour, a social worker, is convinced that the five boys are pawns in an ingenious scam and determines to unravel their testimonies. Thereon the narrative interweaves between the account of the intended victim and the individual stories of the assassins, taking the reader into the belly of a marginalized India still rife with feudal fiefdoms, caste conflicts, police brutality, guns and gore. If Aravind Adiga’s Booker-winning The White Tiger supposedly captured the other India, Tejpal’s book starkly documents the utter hopelessness and inherent misery of those perennially circumvented by the coordinates of their birth and social hierarchy in India.

Replete with bawdy humour, sexual innuendos and hearty abuses, the narrative is laugh-out-loud one page and gut-wrenching the next. Tejpal cocks a snook at Indians and their “moral slipperiness” as The Gita is skilfully deployed by several unsavoury characters, each using the sacred text to justify his actions. With consummate skill Tejpal unpicks the brutality and bleakness pervading the world of his five assassins. In the process he makes the reader question who the victim of the story truly is. However, the narrative energy peters off and the book ends on a whimper as the irreverent, self-centered protagonist suffers an abrupt change of heart. 

Relentless in its portrayal of the powerless, this book is not for the faint-hearted. However, for those seeking to understand the mosaic of twenty first century India with all its confounding inlays, this is the real deal.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" - that is how Winston Churchill famously described Russia in a radio broadcast in 1939. While the bear remains difficult to fathom to this day - read the Wikileaks docu-dump on Russia if in doubt - the Indian elephant is no less obfuscating to an observer. Sample the headlines from today, 17 January 2011, Times of India: US eyeing $1.4bn deal with India for attack copters; Senior cops threatening me, says woman jail warden who helped Banda rape victim; God as guard: Bank opens 'lockless' branch; 'wife-beater' diplomat recalled from UK; Mob tries to burn HIV+ couple...


However, in that broadcast, Churchill added a caveat: "but perhaps there is a key". The key he is referring to is the means to unlocking an understanding of Russia. For anyone looking to comprehend the puzzle that is India, one key I'd recommend is a book: The Story of My Assassins by Tarun Tejpal. Aravind Adiga may have snagged the Booker and Vikas Swarup the Oscar but to Tejpal's book goes the prize for providing one excoriating, unflinching opener into the conundrum that is India.

I reviewed the book for SCMP on its debut and recommend it strongly. A note of caution though: it's not for the faint-hearted.

The Story of My Assassins

by Tarun J Tejpal

Harper Collins

HK$ 185

***1/2

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

FICTION

Tarun J Tejpal, author of The Story of My Assassins, could arguably be one of India’s most notorious journalists. As editor of Tehelka (which means ‘sensational’ in Hindi), a magazine founded on the premise of investigative journalism, he conducted a sting operation in 2001 exposing corruption in India’s defense acquisitions. This earned him the government’s hostility and the public’s attention. Voted one of India’s 50 most powerful people by Business Week, praised by V S Naipaul as “brilliantly original”, viewed as a crusader by the average Indian, the author of the bestselling The Alchemy of Desire is definitely multi-faceted.

The Story of My Assassins leverages off Tejpal’s own experience when, in the aftermath of the sting operation, the journalist was provided with security cover because of a perceived threat to his life. In the book too the protagonist – editor of a struggling magazine, and a lothario with a skewed moral compass – is alerted to a potential assassination attempt when the police descend on his house and cordon it off. Apparently, the police have foiled an attempt to kill the journalist; beyond that there is no information forthcoming. In a limbo of intrigue, impasse, imperil, the protagonist – his name is never revealed – wonders whether the entire scheme is an elaborate set-up to stymie his journalistic forays, the government he is bent on exposing now coddling him against some presumed assassins. When he sights the five hit men – variously named Chaaku, Kabir, Kaliya, Chini, and Hathoda Tyagi – for the first time in court he is further mystified as to the linkages between him and his nondescript would-be-assassins.

Meanwhile, his paramour, a social worker, is convinced that the five boys are pawns in an ingenious scam and determines to unravel their testimonies. Thereon the narrative interweaves between the account of the intended victim and the individual stories of the assassins, taking the reader into the belly of a marginalized India still rife with feudal fiefdoms, caste conflicts, police brutality, guns and gore. If Aravind Adiga’s Booker-winning The White Tiger supposedly captured the other India, Tejpal’s book starkly documents the utter hopelessness and inherent misery of those perennially circumvented by the coordinates of their birth and social hierarchy in India.

Replete with bawdy humour, sexual innuendos and hearty abuses, the narrative is laugh-out-loud one page and gut-wrenching the next. Tejpal cocks a snook at Indians and their “moral slipperiness” as The Gita is skilfully deployed by several unsavoury characters, each using the sacred text to justify his actions. With consummate skill Tejpal unpicks the brutality and bleakness pervading the world of his five assassins. In the process he makes the reader question who the victim of the story truly is. However, the narrative energy peters off and the book ends on a whimper as the irreverent, self-centered protagonist suffers an abrupt change of heart. 

Relentless in its portrayal of the powerless, this book is not for the faint-hearted. However, for those seeking to understand the mosaic of twenty first century India with all its confounding inlays, this is the real deal.