Onions and Tomatoes

Never gave much attention to Onions and Tomatoes although they are the most important ingredients in every day diet. There was a politician in Tamil Nadu who would use the word 'Vengayam', meaning Onion, as a cliche in his speaches. This word is also used to tease or to be-little anyone or any matter, including Onion!

On the other hand, tomatoes are used to show public anger if the speaker goes astray in his speaches! There is a famous tomatoe festival celebrated in Spain every year,in which public make merry by taking bath in 'tomato slurry' and throwing tomatoes all over the town!

Tomatoes and onions are popular crops found in most of the kitchen gardens. Whilst the desi variety of tomatoes are almost extinct nowadays, the desi variety of onions have taken a prestigious place in the hearts of connoiseurs and culinary experts!

Why suddenly the prices of these vegetables have shot the roof in India is a raging debate and a hot media attention now. Maharashtra is the major Onion producer in India. There is a small town on the way to Goa, which is the capital of Onion wholesale trade. I hope readers would identify and respond about this onion capital in their comments. Sometime back, I had an opportunity to visit this town on a business visit(not for wholesale purchase of Onions!).

At that time I came to know from a local that the richest in town are those Onion wholesale traders. They procure onions directly from farmers and hoard it until it is'right time' to sell. They control onion prices and make unbelievable profits!

When I hear the news about the soaring prices of Onions, I am convinced that the households will switch over to 'Jain' preparations,i.e total ban of Onions from their every day menu!


Needless to mention that Onions have become highly potent now, in that one can get tears from the mere feel or thought of it rather than from the peel of it!

Moral Grounds

In the seventies, during our school days, we used to eagerly await classes like the Physical Training period(PT) and Moral periods. PT classes were mostly held in the evenings, whereas moral classes will be held on Mondays first period and, Fridays last period.

We liked the moral classes not because there will be no tests but because of the teacher who would handle those classes. On Mondays, the moral period cannot be extended further as all other main courses would follow. But on fridays, being the last period of the week, invariably it would be extended by another 60 to 90 minutes on popular demands!

The teacher would tell stories and interesting episodes from epics with such details and drama that the students would get engrossed in it and would invariably request the sessions to be continued! There will always be liberal doses of good virtues, moral values and life skills interwoven in those stories. Integrity, honesty and good behaviour building were the objectives of the moral classes in schools.

Of late, we hear people lamenting that there is no moral values in society!

The curricula have undergone sweeping changes over the years to accommodate a lot of 'portions' under each subject that school authorities hardly find any time to accommodate moral education classes. Moreover, Moral Education does not carry any 'weightage'.

The other day, I was watching a TV program in which a police commissioner was being interviewed. The interviewer asked question about how to control the people from violating traffic rules, causing nuisances and committing petty crimes. In response, the commissioner said that preventive policing is more difficult than managing crimes and went on to say that to prevent crimes only moral education at primary and secondary schools would help!


I find morality has become a personal choice of people rather than being the guiding principle in life. Many would argue that if bad practices are not personally committed, then they are on high moral grounds! With this premise in mind, they would hire others to do such practices for them! A corollary is that you are a honest person unless you are caught otherwise!

Well, moral grounds will be in its ideal place, if all players are found there and ready to participate in the game with same set of rules!

Whale of thoughts

The other day I received a forwarded email with the heading 'Big Cruelty'. It also urged the receiver to forward to all friends so that the same can reach to members of 'PETA' and other animal rights activists.

The pictures were so nauseating and heart-rending, that I decided not to forward it.

Yes; the picture showed an entire village involved in this act of'pilot hunting' in which hundreds of Dolphins on the coast of Faroe Island, Denmark were killed in a most crude manner. The coastal waters not only turned red in colour but thickened by the concentration of blood derived from killed animals.

Whilst I saved my friends from the gory sight of the pictures depicting the cruelty committed to hundreds of defenseless, but beautiful and most intelligent animal species, I could not keep quiet without thinking about it in a bid to reason out such practices in this world.

Well, the nature and life cycle involving the biodiversity has its trappings & designs that the so called higher order lives feed on other weaker links for survival. But humans, being on top of the life chain, should be able to live with more responsibility by displaying care and dignity to the environment,viz., the flora and fauna.

However, we do find this responsibility taken up Governments and various activist groups who are now promoting various campaigns and awareness programs.

Thinking about the issue, one has to come to terms with the fact that it is not possible to ban killing of whales as it is also a major source of supply of meat product. But a more refined approach can be introduced so that age old and undesirable practices are replaced by practices that would protect the environment and also ensure that the animals lead a peaceful life till the end.

Here I would like to add that this piece is not triggered by the story about whales but about similar minds having a whale of thoughts.