Yessir-ji, I am your humble tomato, tamatar, thakkali parzham, Lycopersicon cycopersicum—call me what you will—at your service. But if you need to speak to me these days you’ll have to fix an appointment with my secretary. I’m busy, man, I’m studio-hopping these days, answering all those anxious queries from breathless anchors about inflationary trends, sky-rocketing prices, and what the UPA Government must do to rein my prices in. Did you see me on TV looking red and luscious as usual? Bet Aishwarya Rai couldn’t look half as alluring if she had to pose for the cameras in an ordinary market stall. It was not for nothing Pablo Neruda once referred to me as the ‘‘star of the earth’’.

Last night the Prime Minister called me in to take a good look at me, and then had these long meetings with the Finance Minister and an impressive line-up of economists. I nearly split my sides laughing as they yabbered on about price rise indices and elasticity of demand. You know what they say about economists. If there are five of them in a room, you get six opinions. Well I counted five of them in that room, and I heard at least 12 opinions!

What delights me about the current fuss they are making over me is that for a change it is not about those silly lilies who strut about in their pink diaphanous negligees—better known to you folk as onions—who are getting all the public attention. Or, indeed, their stodgy companion, the alu, who is really just a potato-head, totally flavour-less without the spiritual upliftment we impart to them. For a change it is the tomato that has got the government in a soup. It is we who are being measured and projected by the kilo. It is us—not onions—who are making politicians cry.

... contd.