Two days in a row, I cooked two dals most Indians cannot buy any longer. Arhar or tur, and moong. Simple, easy to cook, nutritious, and delicious, these dals now sell at more than Rs 100/kg in my city.
This morning, it was reported that the finance minister flew into a rage in parliament when some members alleged that the government is not serious about the rise in food prices. How does he suppose the homemaker feels, with steadily diminishing options of what she could put on the table for her family, that would not just fill their stomachs but nourish them as well?
Dals are the most easily available source of proteins for millions of Indians. In a diet that is usually richer in carbs than anything else, dals provide a crucial balance. Those of us who can afford it, liven it up with a tempering of ghee in which we fry some simple spices, like cumin and asafoetida, that help digestion. Even without this tempering, or tadka, just plain salted, dals are often quite tasty. The split moong dal is part of another staple — khichdi — the one dish wonder that combines dal with rice that I have cooked on many a lean day when nothing else stocked my fridge.
If there are no dals in the market, what can I do? Or something to that effect the beleagured finance minister is reported to have said.
Where are the dals? Where did they go? And please don’t give us the b-s about hoarders or blackmarketeers — that ’70s lore won’t work any more. In any case, things become lucrative for hoarders to hoard if they are in short supply to begin with.
