A pickle story

A pickle story, politics through the eyes of a gourmand

Once upon a time there were three pickles who were fast friends. This despite being very different in their temperaments. They were, after all, strong specimens of their type. The youngest and friendliest was the sweet pickle, spreading sweetness and light wherever she went. The middling one was the sour pickle who never could see the positive in anything. He had a sharp tongue that miffed friend and foe alike as neither ranked very high in his esteem. The eldest and the leader of the pack of three, was the hot pickle, ever ready to take offence at the drop of a hat, but decisive for all that.

The unique thing about this unlikely trio was that they were practically inseparable. They went all over the country and abroad always agreeing to disagree but each in their own predictable way. The cementing factor, in so far as anyone could see, was that between them, they had any topic very well covered. Each of them was delectably individual and had distinct groups of followers who swore by them, and what is more, never went to a meal without asking for them. The three pickles had to be careful not to spread themselves too thin so that they didn’t get wiped out.

This imperative of survival, despite their loyal constituencies, held the three friends together through thick and thin. The three pickles had a great impact on every kind of meal they were present at and had so much character that quite often they would take over the taste buds of the consumer. This made it necessary to exclude them on occasion or at any rate restrict their participation.

All three also had to be wary of pranksters who identified them with being in trouble of one sort or the other. They were of one accord that consorting with them did not constitute a hazard and were indignant that popular perceptions looked on their relevance with a jaundiced eye.

They thought of amalgamating so that they would no longer stick out like sore thumbs, exposed to threat from over zealous fans. However, after a lot of deliberation, they had to give up the idea because there is little demand for a three-legged pickle with no distinctiveness to its name.

So each one had to perforce carry on, true to type, and individual as ever. The funny thing is, they were not viewed as all that separate, because people ate sweet and sour and hot, all at the same meal, without blinking an eyelid. The irony was they preferred to determine the proportions themselves.

Spiced and preserved as they were, the pickles had yet another worry to do with their shelf-life. To them there was no humiliation greater than to end up a rotten pickle not fit for man or beast. So there was a sense of sharpness and urgency about them. This also helped cement their friendship.

Over indulgence in pickle consumption brings on a heartburn threatening the very root of their popularity. The life of a pickle is a fine balance at the best of times. Then there is the fierce competition. Alien delicacies like chocolates and pastries, the conglomerate ketchup from the US, the halwai’s sweetmeats, namkeen cornucopias in ever-glitzier packaging. Then there are the pretenders like paan-bahar and multifarious churan. What was a well-bred pickle to do with all these contenders for the consumer’s attention?

A fairy tale beginning it might have been on the day of a pickle’s creation, but after that it’s all down hill. The gluttony of the pickle eating public gives the survivors the paranoias of an endangered species. There is, in any case, a declining market in salivatory excesses in these health conscious times. The three pickles gradually came to think of the world as a rather unforgiving place. They agree with all the press comment that it is going to take a lot of doing to live happily ever after, even for a fine pickle picked out of the trio.

(769 words)

Gautam Mukerji
October 9, 1996
First published in The Pioneer, India, 1996www.dailypioneer.com as "Hot, sweet and sour" on Wednesday November 6th, 1996 in the OP-ED page