The Fragrance of Fried Onions

The Fragrance of Fried Onions Meher rushed through her college campus, head down and target set in her mind: the library.

On the way, she quickly pushed through the crowd in front of the canteen, asked for food, snatched two tetrapacks from the canteen, swiped her card and pushed her way out of the crowd again. Now, if this was any other story, I would have gone on and on about the different types of food on the menu. However, this is not another story. Here, in 2073, there is only one food. You see after the great pandemic of 2020, some large global organisations found out how to gain monopoly of the food industry by packing all the essential vitamins and minerals required for human survival into a single soya drink. No hassle of cooking and cleaning, just six tetra packs a day and you are set. Of course, they also have the monopoly on the fibre tablets, but one doesn’t need to use that often anyway.

Our protagonist, who is rushing to the library to process a recent heartbreak, is oblivious to these happenings of the past. Remember, I earlier said that the global organisations were large, very large. They were also very powerful. 30 years of propaganda against any other “food” and actively quashing any dissenters had quickly formed a new world order. They paid off the people who talked about the plight of farmers, or if they couldn’t be paid off, they faced more serious ends. Anyone who remembered what it was like before had either been brainwashed to the new normal or knew to keep their silence. Books, internet pages, videos, podcasts, everything!

Everything was wiped out from living memory. Earlier, the consequences of speaking up were dire, but now after more than 30 years only the older generation remembered. It was easy to classify them as senile for speaking of the “old times”.

Anyway, coming back to the present and Meher has just entered the library. She nods at the librarian who knows her well, but rushes past without any greeting. Meher is angry and being in the library helps her think. You will find her here often, lost among books more often than the e-books, her peers prefer. She thought they had a more personal touch, making her the old librarian’s favourite. “Peace at last, she doesn’t even let me be in my own room!”, Meher thought to herself finally feeling relieved. The ‘she’ in her irritated thoughts is Kousalya, her grandmother, who happened to walk into her room when the aforementioned heartbreak had just taken place. Meher dropped down on one of the shaky library chairs and slurped the tetra pack dry while she collected herself in the welcome silence of the library. Feeling sufficiently calmed down she wandered mindlessly to a section of the library she had not explored yet, History.

World War I….. World War II…. Oil crisis…. Sea level rise….. Did anything good ever happen in the past she wondered as she casually moved along the shelves. “Oh! A complete history of theatre!”, she mumbled to herself, slightly intrigued and her troubles were momentarily forgotten. She grabbed the book off the self and slowly slid to the floor with her back to the shelf. It wasn’t like anyone was going to come find her anyway. The exams were months away so the library was nearly empty. Her best friend already knew why she was bunking English class to hide away in the library. Hardbound books like this one were her favourite; she took a minute to read the reviews on the back of the cover. Upon opening the book, the irritated look on her face came back again instantly. Someone had switched the outer paper cover of the book! This wasn’t ‘A complete history of theatre’. “Which idiot would do something like this!?”, she thought to herself. The actual cover of the book said ‘The fragrance of fried onions’. “Wait… onions… where have I heard this before?”, she thought to herself flipping through the first few pages.

It was a strange book. It looked like her chemistry lab manual, some compounds with strange

names had to be added together in certain amounts and undergo a particular process.

Frustrated with how the day was turning out, she stood up suddenly. Just as she was about to shove the book back in the shelf, she remembered! “Onions! Ajji keeps mumbling about them!”

Meher’s Kousalya ajji is quite “old” and well known for her random rambling. It’s quite possible that no one has really paid attention to what Kousalya ajji is mumbling under her breath for 10 years or so. Everyone around her hears her of course, but they do not really listen. It probably has to do with the same reason why onions reminded Meher of something her ajji said.

Kousalya ajji as a young woman did not take to the streets to protest changes happening in the world. It wasn’t that she did not care about the issue, but she had just finished her PhD in Marine Biology back then, she had just started a family, she needed to have a job to take care of herself first. She did everything she could on the down-low, like signing petitions and supporting the local activists. However, the powers-that-were and fate had different plans for everyone.

She tried her best to keep up with the latest developments and take care of her family’s health while keeping up with her own research. However, now retired from her position as a Professor, she began missing cooking and all the wonderful fresh produce she had grown up using. That’s what she mumbled about most of the time. One would realise if you listened to her closely, as Meher once had.

Meher picked up the book along with a few others for herself and checked them out before rushing back to her next class.

Once she reached home she had to physically drag her grandmother from in front of the entertainment station to her room. She couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but having this book felt wrong. Seeing it felt wrong, bringing it home to her grandmother felt outright criminal!

“Aiyo devare! What do you want? Atleast let me pause my show!”, protested Kousalya while being lugged to her granddaughters’ room.

“I found this today in the library. It reminded me of you!”, said Meher shoving the book into her grandmothers face.

“You and your books! What does art history have to do with me? You could have picked up something about nature at least. I’m old, but that doesn’t mean I will like all historical things na?”, Kousalya began saying in her usual rambling tone.

“Can you please just open it?!”, Meher said already regretting getting her ajji involved in this and searching for her phone to escape the situation.

Meher remembered that she had left her phone in the entertainment room, she turned suddenly and bumped into her grandmother. Kousalya stood looking at the book in her hands, petrified and speechless. Meher felt a sudden fear. Had she given her grandmother a fright with this bad-bad book? However, while Meher’s heart was racing, a small smile was slowly spreading across her grandmother’s face. The smile slowly turned into a quite squeal and then eventually mumblings of “Aiyo! Aiyo deva! How did you find this?”

“I knew you would recognise it. What are all those formulas?”, said Meher. “Silly girl! These are not formulas! This is a cookbook! Where did you find it?”, asked Kousalya again. “I already told you I found it in the library, unlike you I am actually interested in art and whe-”

“How has the library even allowed this book to be stocked? Oh yes it must be because the cover was changed and no one bothered to open it! Haha!”, Kousalya cut her granddaughter off excitedly breaking into laughter and flipping through the pages. Meher gently directed her ajji to the bed, made her sit and waited patiently. Never had she ever seen her grandmother so excited about something.

Finally, after Kousalya had flipped through the book a couple of times, Meher asked her, “So what is this cooking?” “Cooking, you know my dear, making food”, said her ajji still looking at things in the book. “Who makes food? We just get our food, na? What are you talking about?

What is an onion?”, Meher was still confused.

“Cooking is what we did before we invented our ‘food’. And oh my dear! I cannot express how beautiful it was! The feeling of biting into freshly baked bread! Oh how I miss it!”, Kousalya explained, holding an imaginary loaf of bread in her hands.

“EW! Why would humans bite into anything? EW! That’s what that disgusting street cat was doing the other day on my way to the metro pod stop. Biting into that dead rat. Ugh!”, said Meher completely disgusted by the idea that humans should chew like animals. “We have teeth like a cat’s don’t we? Why shouldn’t we use them to chew? It’s like I have always been saying, but none of you any attention to me.”, said Kousalya.

“Wait a minute, quickly go check if your parents are at home.” Kousalya told her granddaughter.

“It’s Tuesday, they won’t be home till late today. Why does it matter anyway?”, said Meher. “That is perfect! Meher dear, quickly change into something comfortable and wear some shoes you are not afraid of ruining. Meet me downstairs in two minutes! Quickly! I think it’s finally time to show you something!” said Kousalya rushing out of Meher’s room.

Poor Meher’s protests of how much work she had to catch up on went completely unnoticed.

She really, really did not want to leave the house again. Her head hurt from being angry the whole day, but she did not think her ajji would listen to reason today. She pulled on some sportswear and headed downstairs to wear an old pair of running shoes. Kousalya soon joined her, smiled and said “Come dear”, while stepping out of the house. Meher’s questions of where, why, and if her grandmother was listening to her all went unanswered.

Kousalya made a beeline for the neighbouring lake. Meher trailed her demanding answers.

Once they made it to the lake, Kousalya abruptly turned to her granddaughter and told her “Meher, now you must remember, what I am about to show you HAS to be between the two of us”. Meher nodded sensing she did not have much of a choice. Kousalya led her out of the main walking path along the freshly mowed grass. Making sure that no one was looking at them, she led the way from the walking path and to the vegetation that surrounded the lake premises.

Meher was getting more and more confused, it seemed like her grandmother was leading her straight to the thicket of plants. “Old lady! What is the point of this”, thought Meher, and just like that her ajji walked straight through a small opening in the vegetation. Meher reluctantly followed, putting her arms up to protect her face from the prickly branches of the tall bushes.

When she made it to the other side, her grandmother stood smiling at her, beaming with pride.

“Wha--”, Meher began to say but her voice trailed away as she took in her surroundings. In front of her was a decently sized patch of land between the bushes that were supposed to be along the lake’s boundary wall and the boundary wall itself. In this little patch of land, her ajji had been up to something. Kousalya moved along plants that grew neatly in lines, some were even

held up by sticks and lines of tread. Meher saw plants that she had never seen before. “So what do you think?”, said Kousalya picking up something from a plant and putting it in her mouth.

“Ajji! Why did you do that! Spit it out! You don’t know what that is!”, protested Meher repulsed and concerned at the same time. “That my dear is a baby tomato, here try one”, said Kousalya, handing a freshly plucked red, juicy orb to her aghast granddaughter. “I am NOT putting that in my mouth!”, said Meher stepping back in disbelief of her grandmother. “Arre china, I ate it. I am fine, no? See this is what it is. It says in the book you brought for me…. Cherry tomato.”

Seeing it in the book made Meher feel slightly better and it was true, her grandmother was more than fine. She seemed to enjoy popping those tomatoes in her mouth. She softly picked up the little tomato from her ajji’s hand, took a deep breath and put it in her mouth, her eyes closed in anticipation of an unpleasant experience. But nothing happened, she looked at her ajji very confused. “You have to chew into it you silly girl! It won’t just dissolve!” said Kousalya feeling entertained by her granddaughter’s discomfort. Once again, Meher closed her eyes and bit down on the tomato. Quickly her mind went from being surprised that it was so filled with juice, slightly disgusted, confused at its sweet and sour taste and finally relived that nothing bad had happened. She opened her eyes and found that her grandmother had moved on to picking other things from other plants.

“How was it?” asked Kousalya, when she saw Meher walking towards her. “It was different, interesting, I don’t thin-” Kousalya cut her granddaughter mid-sentence “Now try these, they are called strawberries. They are not the sweetest, but it took me 6 years to find a plant so you are not allowed to complain. And here, this is a cucumber. I also have some chillies but we won’t eat them just like this of course! Haha!”

On and on Meher kept trying different produce from her grandmother’s garden. The tart strawberries made her twist her mouth in disgust. She really enjoyed the cucumbers as she had forgotten to hydrate the whole day in her anger. Her ajji made her eat three different leaves, they all looked different, but in Meher’s opinion, they all tasted the same… Very “green”, her grandmother protested this feeling though. Kousalya showed her where the different things were in the library book. After trying different things and looking at plants that were not in fruit, Meher finally started enjoying the experience. She found herself giggling while trying every new thing, disgust at the idea of chewing forgotten. Maybe her grandmother’s enthusiasm was the real game-changer or maybe it was those tasty Bengal currant fruits.

Kousalya explained to Meher why this had to be their secret, why she couldn’t grow plants at the house, and she talked about all the different things she could make with the plants in the garden. Kousalya also talked about the things she couldn’t make, because those plants didn’t grow here or were very hard to cultivate. Meher listened to her grandmother completely mesmerised and in slight disbelief. This was a completely new world, which her ajji revealed to her.

The sun had begun to set; this was their cue to get back home before the lake complex automatically locked itself for the night. On their way out it suddenly struck Meher, “Ajji, all those fruits and vegetables we ate were nice, but they didn’t look anything like, what do you call those, those dishes in the book right?” “Yes, that because we ate them raw. Tomorrow we will go to Mrs. Sundar’s house. You know the Sundars who live two houses from ours. She has everything we need to cook. I give her my produce and she lets me cook at her house. We both enjoy the food together. Tomorrow Meher get ready for the best day of your life! You will eat your grandmother’s Masala dosa for the first time.”

The pair made their way home in the dusk, laughing and chatting. Their bond renewed not only by the discoveries made today, but also with each other’s complete attention and company. ***End***