Onion Pakora' Paradise Lost

The onions were absolutely luscious and I looked at them lovingly with a knife in my hand. Normally I would not have given them a second look but that day my wife promised to make onion pakoras for me if I chopped them up and I was about to do it when imagination flooded my mind with all sort of ideas about the veggie. Little did I know that my dream of onion pakoras was going to evaporate in a few minutes.

Onions and love I thought were quite similar. One is called Pyaaz in Hindi and other Pyaar, just a difference of one letter. Both were tear inducing. If you don’t believe me that love induces tears just watch those old romantic movies in which heroines shed copious glycerin –induced tears.

My chain of onion-related thoughts was broken when the bell rang and my wife opened the door only to be hit by a high-decibel shout of HARE KRISHNA!!!! I ducked for cover with onions before I could be hit by the Krishna cannonade.

It was my cousin from Doha who had arrived unannounced with hubby and kid in tow... Before the devout ISKCON member could Hare Krishna me, she saw the onions, looked at them as if they were monsters and cheerfully informed us that we were guilty of cow slaughter. This was followed by an interesting botany lecture.

Onions and garlic, she said grew from the blood of slaughtered cows and eating them amounted to cow slaughter and eating beef. Only after that lecture, she apologized for not informing about her arrival and said that she couldn’t get us on the phone and forgot my internet address.

After that cow slaughter bit, a little bit of hope was kindled in my mind. Surely she wouldn’t like to stay with sinners like us? But alas, no. She , turned out to be quite tolerant of sinners and settled down comfortably. And so there was a major power failure in my department of hope. (If cow slaughter results in onions and garlic I would actively back killing the bovine as otherwise it would be impossible to get onion pakoras).

I suggested to DW that we should go ahead with operation onion pakora but she vetoed my proposal saying that it was bound to affect the feelings of the guests even if they appeared quite tolerant of our sinful way of life.

But while we avoided onions, we had to get a supply of melons regularly as the cousin breezily informed us that she was on a melon diet to lose the massive amount of flab she had gathered.. The husband whispered to me behind her back that the diet would hardly help her lose weight because she did not eat only melons but melons along with a whole lot of other things, including paranthas dripping with ghee.

But she went on consuming melons and we kept on going bananas. She had come to India on a plilgrimage to places associated with Krishna like Mathura and Vrindavan and the woman who had not done a spot of exercise in her life decided that she would walk around the Govardhan hill which was said to have been lifted by Krishna to protect the cowherds from the wrath of Indra, the king of gods.who had tried to flood their village for not worshipping him. The distance to be covered was about 25 km and we tried to persuade her to cover it in a horse carriage. But she stubbornly refused to share the good karma she planned to accumulate with the horse and the carriage.

As she left on a pilgrimage the wife some calm was restored but not for long. After a couple of days we received a midnight phone call. It was from the cousin’s husband. Could we pick them `up from the inter-state bus terminal?

As we drove to the terminal the cousin alighted from the bus assisted by hubby and son. She was groaning in pain with swollen feet. No the 25 km walk did not help her cut the flab but simply bloated her feet to match the size of her body.

For two days the groaning and grunting continued as she remained almost the entire day with her feet in salted warm water. Then she recovered her spirits and wanted to visit the local ISKCON temple. (Great place, even for an atheist like me. It has a restaurant which serves excellent grub attached to it. I view it as a restaurant with a temple attached).

At the temple she bought some CDS. Including one on Hare Krishna chants in which the chanters went on with Hare Krishnas ad nauseum. At home when she played the CD, the more practical husband feebly pointed out that they already had one such CD back home.She snapped: “Don’t you hear the cows of Vrindavan mooing in the background?”.

Yeah some moos were heard in the background but how on earth did she know that the members of the chorus were cows of Vrindavan and not tho ones feasting at Delhi garbage dumps. We dared not ask her.

Finally when the trio of cousin, husband and kid left we heaved a sigh of relief. When I put my doubts about the chorus of cows to my wife, she burst out laughing. “Phew at that time I had a tough time controlling my giggles. Now I can laugh out loud” she said.

And so we went on eating onion pakoras happily ever after.

 

Deepali onion pakoa is a dish for all seasons and there is no need to control yourself until rains. Freak out now itself unless you have developed scruples over eating them after learning that onions and garlic originated from cow's blood!

 

Lakshmi, Cannibal cows!!!!!!!! That is shocking isn't it? I think ISKCON people like my cousin should tak up the task of educating cows that by eating onions they become cannibals. That would be a much more noble task than trying to wean people away from onions and garlic. Yeah she can do aerobics pretending to be both Krishna and Radha. Or she can migrate to Vrindavan and take a daily round of Govardhan to lose weight.