THE POLL KITCHEN - Onion Skingh goes on a holiday

Onion Skingh was tired. Today, sitting on the upturned basket that marked his gaddi, he truly felt his age. He decided he needed a break. He turned to the turnip that was running around in circles around his basket in the name of security and said, “Turnturn Skingh, come here!”

Turnturn stopped running and hopped atop the basket.

“Go tell Madame Baingan… er…. Madame Brinjal that I am taking the day off. I need a holiday.”

Turnturn’s jaw dropped. Onion hardly took holidays. Granted, no one really saw him every day really, but everyone knew that he was sitting on top of the basket and running things in the kitchen – at least tried to appeared to. The real power, everyone knew, lay in the vegetable crisper inside the fridge.

Turnturn returned quickly with permission granted. Onion was relieved. He hopped down from the basket and rolled to the bowl where all the other members of his family lay. He called out to his wife, “Gunion, O Gunion! Let’s go out somewhere today.”

But Gunion was having a good time with her family members, playing cards. “Oh, ji! I am bijee ji… You go.”

Onion was disappointed. It was lonely on top of the basket. He had been hoping that Gunion would come. But now… he was alone, alone… It was alone at the top. Reflecting sadly on the situation that Time had placed him in, he hopped out of the window and rolled to the tar road outside the compound of the house he lived in. No one saw him leave. Not even the cook.

Poor Onion… alone and isolated on top of the upturned basket in the kitchen for years, no one told him that the world outside was not so safe. He missed being grabbed by a passing woman, narrowly dodged the wheel of a passing car, was nosed about by a dog that thought he was a ball till he found the opportunity to escape…! His heart thundering(not a good sign at this age), he rolled on till he found a shady spot beneath a stone near a tree. Gasping for breath, he lay there… until a drunken man lying on the shade of the very same tree spotted him and grabbed him. The man must have been hungry for he lifted Onion to bite into him skin and all, when his wife, who had been looking for him came by and grabbed Onion.

“Oho! Onions are selling at Rs.80 a kg and you want to enjoy it alone!!! You drunken lout! I am going put this in to a subzi I am making for the kids. Now come home immediately.”

A helpless Onion, firm in her grasp, was taken to the hovel which passed for her home. Three scruffy children sat there fighting with each other and playing some game on the mud floor. “If only Bir Raj were here,” thought Onion, “He would have made best use of this opportunity.”

He missed the media at this moment. He could imagine the headlines if they caught him, Onion Skingh, in the hovel of this wretchedly poor woman: ‘Onion breaks bread with Poorvathy Devi! Spends night feeding her kids!”
Sighing, for Poorvathy still held him tightly in her grasp, Onion watched the kids play. Suddenly the kids spotted Onion in their mother’s fist.

“An onion! Maa… you are cooking onion today. I get to taste it first!” said one.

“No, I get the first taste!” said the other.

In the scuffle, one of the children caught hold of Onion and threw him far… He could hear the family scream their loss as he sailed through the air and landed… outside the gate of the home where his kitchen was situated.

Greatly relieved, he rolled in, hopped back through the kitchen window, to the kitchen counter where the upturned basket lay. He was happy to be back where he belonged.

He was never going to take a holiday ever again.

THE POLL KITCHEN – No Baingan Tonite

Onion Skingh sat on his gaddi in the kitchen, struggling not to roll off. He had upturned a basket to make for a high seat, so that the other vegetables could not hop up to sit next to him. He was on an all time high, but keeping position, as we all know, is a very difficult task. Besides, he was round as well.

Onion was also a bit worried about his appearance today. Some dry skin was peeling off, and he was rather particular about looking tidy. He was not looking so fresh, he felt. After all, his job was to keep a stiff upper lip and vegetate. He sniffed a bit – he hoped he was not giving off an odour due to the peeling of the skin. For today, Madame Brinjal was coming in for a meeting.

Onion was a bit uneasy. His price was at an all time high, which meant that it distanced him from everyone. He smelt a conspiracy. On one hand Madame Brinjal assured him that the pricey ‘ness’ was to keep his flag flying high. On the other, there was Bir Raj Brinjal, the heir apparent, who was behaving like he wanted to make onion chutney.

Bir Raj was a bit of an irritant. Onion hoped he wasn’t coming into the meeting. His chest felt a bit fluttery already. The fridge suddenly opened and there was Madame Brinjal, closely followed by a few beans, two-three carrots, one cucumber, a gaggle of ladies fingers, a turnip and a bitter gourd. One or two smaller brinjals tried to follow Madame but she deftly kicked them back into the vegetable crisper and shut the fridge door.

“Aah, there you are Onion,” she smiled, her purple skin crinkling. “Hope you are keeping power properly.”

“Madame! Yes, of course... Do hop up. I am keeping this basket warm for you and Bir Raj. Has he come?”

“Bir? No, no. He is sleeping in. There was some Currynival last night Onion. And Bir organised it... He is tired.”

“Yes Madame, Bir is indeed a shining star.”

“Stop that Onion! Now tell me, what’s today’s menu?”

“Ahem... er... it’s kichidi for breakfast and parathas for lunch with ladies finger. Then, for dinner I thought, rotis with brinjal chutney...”

Madame looked up sharply. “What do you mean Onion?”

“Er... I meant Tomato Chutney Madame!”

“Where are the Tomatoes?” asked Madame sharply. “Have we finished them off or what?”

Before Onion could reply, there was a shrill yell, “Nonsense, nonsense!”

It was Bir Raj, and he was holding aloft a rather shrivelled and dry looking onion.
Onion Skingh shivered. He had a premonition of things to come.

“Mamma! Make way!” He leapt on the upturned basket and with the force of the velocity of his movement, kicked at Onion Skingh.

The sharp and fierce blow sent the elderly Onion rolling off the basket straight into the dustbin. Bir then placed the shrivelled onion atop the basket, next to Madame. Flashbulbs popped as the media captured this unexpected elevation.

“What did I tell you Mamma, about velocity? See, I brought this onion from the dumps, and now your Onion is in the dustbin.”

“Bir! What are you doing?”

“This is a poor onion Mamma, and I used velocity to kick the old Onion out and elevate this poor onion...”

“By Jupiter, are you mad?” Madame’s lips purpled and quivered. “Put him back in the dumps, we need him there you fool. Without him in the dumps, what will you have to talk about? And have Onion Skingh picked up from the dustbin and brought back up.”

“But Mamma, you told me...”

“I have told you a lot of things, now do as you are told.”

Well, to cut things short, Onion Skingh is back on top of the basket alongside Madame and they are cooking up a new menu.

Bir, meanwhile, has taken the onion back to the dumps and lovingly put him back in a special hole dug in the mud. He has promised to visit him again.