The 10-day
Ganesh Festival in Mumbai this year was highlighted by one unique natural
element—rains. It was termed unique because of its unerring consistency.
Lightning and thunder marked almost every evening of the period with
accompanying rains—at times quite heavy—most of the times. Mumbaikars
worshiping their beloved God got almost used to it and made preparations in
advance every evening. Most of them were not at all disheartened as the rains
submerged the soaring heat bringing welcome cheers. Mumbai has just recorded the lowest-in-a-decade September day temperature. However, a lot of them were
very disadvantaged caught by lighting and thunder on the beaches on most of the
immersion days.
The consistency
even improved. On the day of final immersion that is Wednesday-September 18
intense bursts of lightening and thunder started around midnight. And then the
heavy rains that continued throughout the night and all of Thursday wiping out
any rain deficit some areas might have been having even after a very productive
South West Monsoon-2013.
One major cause
of this unique consistency could be that the whole of August saw little or no
rains. And of course, the Monsoon must have been planning all the time to bid a
very strong and memorable adieu to Mumbaikars. However, man is immensely
capable of negating Nature’s benevolence and bounty with exemplary greed,
malevolence and selfishness.
Despite a most
welcomed productive Monsoon the prices of vegetables, particularly onions,
soared, soared and soared. The official reason shown was that there were
excessive rains in some onion-producing regions of Maharashtra
affecting the production adversely and therefore prices would have to remain
high till new crops arrived in the markets. But experts confidently say that
while production fell by just 10 percent prices rose by nearly 250 percent.
Imagine, a vegetable normally selling for 10-15 rupees rose to 70-80 rupees a
kilo. Add all kinds of costs including transport costs to the earlier price
accounting for everything and even after that the hike cannot be justified.
Experts say further that in wholesale markets the price is around 55 rupees a
kilo and with all costs included the retailers cannot sell it for a price more
than 60 rupees a kilo. The experts stop here and do not want to explain further
for obvious reasons.
Well, there is
windfall season for all middlemen and retailers with the political network
thrown in as the hapless farmers look on puzzled. Not only in Mumbai, but all over India. No doubt mortals like you and
me are shedding onion tears of absolute separation, but the ‘rightly’ blessed
ones are rolling over the loot. What could the government do apart from
sounding hollow warnings to hoarders not to artificially hike prices of onions
by keeping back stocks illegally?
Why shed tears o’
fellow citizens? Say no to onions! You won’t die of hunger! And, next time don’t
vote for the ‘onion politicians’!
