Strange are the ways of the economy, and of the people who oversee its functioning. They would not let me engage in what I would like to describe as ‘quotidian activism’! On reading of horrors that processed food items with their innumerable artificial additives can unleash on human health, I decided to not eat packaged or processed food as long as I have other alternatives.
I thought it would be my way of protesting against being fed as ‘food’ items which have nothing save industrial chemicals as their ingredients. Fruit drinks do not have a gram of fruit in them and much sought-after ‘healthy’ snacks have dangerous transfats in them! I thought I ought to protest against this infringement not only of my right to nutrition but also of my right to information, awareness and free choice. To discover that what I have been consuming as ‘healthy’ crackers because they are advertised as edibles containing fibrous grains, are actually laden with artificial flavours snd fats was scandalous for me not merely because the stuff adversely affected my health but because I have been misled into believing that iit is good for me and eventually, into buying it.
It is this culture of influence and control over my food habits by the industrial food production system and its advertising mechanism that I wanted to protest against. But I soon realized that I would inevitably have to break my resolution, change my decision, desert my own cause. I would have become an apostate and not because, I could not resist the temptation of drinking diet cola on blazing afternoons despite knowing that it has been sweetened with artificial sweetner of questionable health impact, or because I could not overlook the convenience of eating noodles which can be cooked in five minutes. I knew I would have to break my resolution because my alternatives are all exorbitantly priced. Only today I paid close to hundred bucks for as few as three mangoes-back at home, when my ma served us mangoes every evening during the summer months it had never occurred to me to attempt to discover anything about the yellow fruit except its ambrosia-like taste. That is all that I had cared for but now when I have to buy it, I discover facts other than this that it is an expensive fruit. I now get an opportunity to brood over the question why is it so important to earn good money. Not because you are not particularly bothered by your conscience that hinders you from becoming a cog in the giant corporate machinery; not because you want a sybarite life-style and certainly not because you crave for the social standing that comes with a heavy purse. You want to earn money suddenly to be able to eat mangoes.
Yes, I just need to brush up my basic economics and I should know that prices of fruits and vegetables are high because presently, the country is smarting under the blows of high food inflation. But I still cannot stop scratching my head-how come the price of mangoes has increased because of food inflation but not the price of the mango-based (so-called) drinks? The cost of potatoes are spiraling upwards but that of a packet of potato wafers still remains ten rupees as it was fifteen years ago when I first began to get addicted to its ineffable taste.
There were other amazing discoveries to make-the fruit vendor on the street sold half a kilo apples to me for eighty rupees whereas at the neighbourhood mall, the same quantity of apples costs fifty bucks. Thinking that maybe my mannerisms of an ingenuous, wide-eyed(so appealing for vendors!) dolt must have convinced the fruit vendor that perhaps she can fleece me as and when she pleases, I decided to confront her if only to prove to her that looks can be deceptive. But alas! I soon squirmed with embarrassment because she explained to me patiently in halting Hindi that she bought small quantities of particular fruits whereas retail giants who run stores in malls bought the entire produce directly from individual farmers. Could she ever compete with retail chains in terms of pricing? No, she could not, she said nodding her head and then asked me how could I expect her to offer as low prices as the malls? I was reminded of one of the lectures in TISS on why is the small vendor or neighbourhood grocery shop badly hit by liberalization.
Thus, I am struck in an excruciating situation-I either, given my paltry income, give up my protests against being forced to become a consumer of processed food items or I continue my protests but end up in the process, becoming a mall customer where fruits are still affordable because the idea of buying greens and fruits from the sweet-faced, smooth talking and slightly condescending fruit vendor in my neighbourhhood, representative of India’s ever accommodating informal sector, is a very costly one for me.
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