Living in Caliyuga with a capital C
Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 10:21PM It was my brother who coined the term Caliyuga!
If some IT dude in the bay area threw a stone here, the ripple (a big one) would be felt in Bangalore and Chennai, was his observation. It goes beyond IT. Looks like this place controls the economy, was a relatives observation.
However, all that is possibly hoopla, after this recent conversation between me and Harshad Bhai, our local desi grocer.
Me : Ab sona masoori rice kitne ka hai?
HB : 41 $ for the 20 lb bag
Me : aap sentence ke peeche "!!" bhool gaye (actually that is not what I said)
Me : aise he "casually" bolthe hai 41$
HB : kya kare. New Jersey mein bhi yahi daam hai! do teen hafte me sona masoori milega hi nahin...
Me : (to San) put that rice back. This is BS. when everyone stops buying this at 41 bucks, they will drop the price!
HB : gives me a smile that would put any all knowing smile to shame (even the one on the krishna who is smiling at Arjuna on this Gita photo nearby!). Aap koi doosra rice try keegiye?!
Me : pandra beez dollar pe koyi rice nahin hai kya?
HB : ek do hai. 25$ kaa.
Me : ye walla?
HB : nahin. woh scented rice hai thailand kaa. bachche pasand nahin karenge.. yeh laxmi kaa le legiye..
Me : chota saa 10 lb bag le jaata hoon.. try karenge aur uske baad achcha lage toh 20 lb lenge..
HB : woh 10 lb kaa bahut mehanga padega appko. Jasmine rice hai! Yeh Laxmi Indian rice try keejiye. Sab yahi leke jaa rahe hai.
Me : all thrilled that at last there is one Indian rice that is under 30 bucks for 20 pound bag... "deejiye deejiye!"
So far the kids have actually adjusted to this rice, but the adults cannot even eat half the rice. We end up wasting rice or making some koozhu out of it.
Here is an apology to god, my mother, my wife, my mother in law, all my aunts who fed me for all those years, especially my Raji mami who would beg me not to waste rice when I was a teenager..
I am sorry!
Should have known better that good rice would be so hard to get!
What would it take for a few of us living in california to start cultivating some paddy here ? Apparently (or so the lady at Yamagami nursery tells me), the soil here is so fertile that anything will grow here and it is clayeeeeeee too !
You bring the tractors, I bring the mundasu to tie on our heads and off we can go farming...
Hmmm.. I am getting visions of San in that village girl costume, the one that looks like a capri version of the madisaar saree, bringing me lunch on her head, just like in those old tamizh movies...
farming actually sounds nice, right about now!
ps. as a tamlish writer, the hindlish transliteration may not be that good.. read it in Hindi with a Tamizh accent and it will make sense. For those of you wondering why does this dude write in Hindlish, the four most important years of my life were spent in Banaras! It is where this Tamlish Boy grew up to become a Hindlish man...
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california, caliyuga, export, farming, rice shortage
Reader Comments (7)
Hahahahhahaha! hilarious Sundar!! I am trying to imagine the typical village scene in CA, it would be quite a sight!!!!
sundar:
rotfl!
dude, you are hereby found guilty of pepetuating (if not perpetrating) the http://bangaloreblues.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/dont-be-canjoos/" REL="nofollow">myth(?) of the kanjoos nri! ;-) man, didn't you know that the nri wallet is like arjun's inexhaustible quiver, a veritable wallet of the fed?
you should've said (or at least blogged that you said): hitesh bhai! kyaa 20$ kyaa 41$! hamen sonaa masoori hee chaahiye. ham aadarsh nri hain.
you also need to add the proclamation (pc king of mac vs. pc advertisements fame): any nri worth his salt (and/or reputation) must now subsidize a future trip from india with two 25lb bags of sona masoori.
- s.b.
p.s.: seriously speaking though, i (we) had some company last month, and dude was saying: "i want to retire and start a farm right here in the usa!"
Rofl- I was drinking my morning coffee when I read the "let's bring out the tractors bit." I spit at my computer screen Sundar annah! tsk..tsk..
Also I only got a vague idea of the Hindi convo you had with the grocer, any chance you might translate it, I'm sure there were little gems in the conversation itself.Don't want to miss out.lol. Please and thank you.
I totally hear ya. Though the rest of the post was funny - the rice prices are sure not!
It went upto $36 and it's now come down to $26 here in PA. So he's lying about the NJ - $41 bit!
It's been a while since we switched to chappathis on alternate days as you get whole wheat flour in the US of A!!!
Related http://tringtring.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post.html" REL="nofollow">POST
Try Indian Basmati rice sold at Sams/Costco-Rasam rice or Pulav-Tastes good !:-)
.....
Its been a while i shopped at desi grocery stores. Do away with kadugu ,ulutham parupu or get'em from korean/chinese or mexican stores..the cost is comparatively less than those greedy indian stores.
Sundat, even your serious post cannot escape your sense of humour! Hear hear. Yes, we folks back in desh are wusses of the first order- making waves is just not our scene. But we enjoy fruitless whining(:
Rice has become damn expensive here too! And they say its coz they are exporting! I pay Rs 70/kg for the rice we eat everyday. It used to cost us Rs 35.00 about 6-7 months ago.