American author Carl Sandburg had once said: “Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
India can attest to that. With each passing day, onion prices are leaving people in tears.
Meanwhile, the Twitterati have been using the social medium as an outlet for their angst.
Considering the highs onions are touching and the lows of the rupee, one Twitter user joked: “After some economic experiment, Government of India decided to use onion as currency. Because it’s still more valuable than rupees.”
Indeed, the proposal to use onions as the new currency appears to be a rather popular one on the social networking site.
And while the Shiela Dikshit-led Delhi Government has decided to sell the vegetable at Rs 50 a kg, the Twitter world was abuzz with news that the BJP, to go one up on the UPA, has decided to sell onions at Rs 25 a kg.
In a grim reminder of 1998, when the BJP-led Government fell, ostensibly due to high onion prices, Opposition leaders are claiming that the UPA, too, will be felled by the onion.
Indeed, it is not the Coalgate, 2G, and CWG scams but the humble onion that will prove the UPA Government’s undoing, say tweeple.
Ordinary citizens continued to vent their frustration with onion prices on the site. One tweet, re-tweeted 111 times at last count, read: “Funny. Dollar on an escalator. Rupee on a ventilator. Nation in ICU. V r in coma. Onion in showroom. God bless India.”
Another wondered whether the bad breath caused by eating raw onions could now be considered “a sign of prosperity”.
Amul’s new ad featuring “‘peel’ good butter” was also being tweeted by many.
One popular story on the social networking site is about robbers stealing a truck full of… onions! And no, that news is not from a satirical Web site.
Given how valuable onions have become, cricketer Ravindra Jadeja tweeted that die-hard romantics should replace diamond rings with onion rings!
Another user joked that a bride’s family has had to cancel the wedding since the groom’s family demanded that all the ornaments be made of onion!
Meanwhile, some retailers have been making the most of the crisis. Earlier they used to promise free mobiles, watches, or sunglasses. Now, they have begun promising free onions on purchases.
In Kolkata, Ghaziabad and other places, clothing stores are centring their marketing strategies around onions. And why not?