The guard at the entry gate stopped me with a cursory smile, it wasn’t his fault, mine neither. Security guards all around the globe would obviously be suspicious of a man whose pockets are bloated in an unorthodox fashion, especially a security guard standing at the doorsteps of a Bank. After thorough inspection he was relieved that there were no explosives in my pocket and that they were just onions, yes onions!
I went there to apply for a loan to buy Arhar Dal, I knew that the staff would not pass my loan unless they were bribed with something loathsome and what better thing to offer as bribe other than onions. The price of onions hiked up in the last three or four months and reached historical levels. Pulses and onions were vying to be ahead of each other, onions reached 80 per kg, but were far behind pulses that reached 200 per kg. My friend who was dying to eat Dal Tadka, but was unable to do so because pulses were at record heights, thought of this idea to take loan and he was granted a loan the moment they sniffed onions in his bag. He instructed me to pull the same trick and there I was standing with a pocket full of them.
There were several desks and it took me a while to get to the clerk’s table who would check my documents. Coincidentally the clerk was reading an article on the rising inflation and how people who had three meals a day curtailed it to one or probably none. He stopped reading as soon as I approached him, I felt a sudden uneasiness but continued. He didn’t ask me to sit but I took the seat for the conversation to be fruitful. He looked reclusive and I sensed that my arrival was not at all welcomed. But suddenly his face beamed and glowed when he saw one of the onions which by mistake fell on the ground.
Almost drooling, he asked me several irrelevant questions regarding the loan. Whether I was capable to pay the EMIs, what was my salary, etc. He would have continued his interrogation if I had not slipped three big fat onions from under the table, which he swiftly and covertly placed in the drawer. He had a superficial glance at my papers and sent me to the manager’s cabin. I stood and headed towards the air conditioned cabin of the manager and the clerk took those onions and placed it in his office bag, which were already filled with a dozen of them, maybe there were many loan seekers like me, may be others too were in a dire need of a loan to satiate their culinary fantasy of ‘Dal Tadka’.
It was obvious that if the clerk took three, the manager would obviously take more. His cabin had a strong scent of onions and he himself smelled like one. I could now very well infer that like me this great idea of seducing with onions was ubiquitous by now and that before I came here, there were others who benefitted themselves with this unique scheme. The manager without any remorse declared that if I am taking loan for a kilogram of pulses, I had to give at least a half kg of onion to him. To substantiate, he gave a long lecture that he too had a family to feed and that only this bank would grant a loan on half kilograms of onions, others would not even look at my file without a kilogram of it. He boastfully claimed that if I would have applied for a loan in any other bank, they would demand a 10% share in the ‘Dal’ and that he was content with onions.
I knew I was vulnerable and so I gave all that I brought with me. With a wicked smile on his face, he broke the news that my loan was granted and that I could collect my money from the counter. He didn’t stop there and suggested that they had a locker facility which I could avail to keep my hard earned ‘Dal’ safe and secure. The manager then narrated several incidents of burglary in his vicinity, he suggested that ‘Dal’ is no longer safe in one’s house and it was imperative to keep them in lockers.
I skirted the conversation as I didn’t have enough money for lockers, well to be honest I didn’t have enough money to even bribe them with onions. I would not have dared for this ‘Dal Tadka’ escapade if I haven’t got a kilogram of them as a birthday gift. I had my birthday the previous day and out of all the gifts I was thankful to my friend who showed heart by giving onions wrapped in a silver paper. It was probably the best birthday gift a common man can ever get in such times when inflation rose and became taller than the Himalayas. I hurriedly came out of the cabin and gave a missed call to my friend, the amount was ready and I stood there waiting for my friend. The mission was accomplished.
Note – The article was a satire on the ever increasing prices of onions and pulses. Seeing the way things are, probably dal tadka will become just a dream.
