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Onions bring no tears to Kashmiri eyes

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Onions -- or to be precise, onion prices -- have brought tears to the eyes of all state governments.

All except the one in Jammu and Kashmir, that is.

The reason is rudimentary. Kashmiris, voracious meat eaters they are, consider vegetables a luxury. And onions being strictly categorised veg, it's a commodity the folks have been more or less doing without.

"Thank God for that!" said a state official, "Otherwise our CM sahib (Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah) wouldn't be enjoying himself in London... he would, like other CMs, be trying to provide onions to public at subsidised rates!"

That, however, is not to say onion prices are kind in Kashmir. They aren't. Presently, the stuff is sold at Rs 40 per kilogram, which is 100 per cent above normal.

"There have been no panic buying in Srinagar," a vegetable seller told Rediff On The NeT, much like a broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange, "That is the reason the prices haven't really jumped. Also, there was a bumper crop of onions this time around and there's enough of it in the market... so people aren't interested in stocking up."

State officials agree: "No cause for panic."

A dash through the markets of Srinagar brings up another piece of info - it ain't onions alone that are reaching for the sky. Right alongside are lady's finger, potatoes and beans.

Lady's finger, coming from neighbouring Punjab, is presently touching Rs 30 per kilo in retail. In wholesale, it fetches Rs 27-28. Beans prices are at Rs 44 a kilo and potatoes, Rs 15.

Interestingly, cauliflower and cabbage have kept a cool head in this time of tension, point-blank refusing to shoot up. This, people-in-the-know say, is because both are in-house - that is to say, grown in the valley in abundance.

"I hope mutton prices do not increase," muttered Masood Ahmad, a student, fearfully, "If that happens there will panic in the valley!"

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