Tears of joy over jumbo Chinese onions

The average Indian homemaker, who's also by definition an accomplished cook, would be thrilled to visit vegetable markets in China. Onions almost double the size of a "deuce ball" (an Indian colloquial corruption of the hand-stitched Dukes leather ball used in cricket matches) would trigger waves of culinary creativity in their frontal cortex.

I am not a homemaker. For me, cooking is an adult survival skill, or, at best, a therapeutic option when boredom threatens to advance into cognitive dissonance and psychosis. And yet, I felt a surge of excitement when I walked into a market near my apartment in Beijing and laid eyes on those big, red onions, each weighing at least three times the 163-gram standard ball allowed in international men's cricket. I was so amused that I spontaneously shared my observations with a Pakistani friend accompanying me, almost certain he would get the cricket analogy, given our countries' famous rivalry on the pitch. He looked somewhat embarrassed, and it took me a bit to realize that I had referred to the "deuce ball" in plural and inadvertently omitted the operative word while doing so.

Now, I am not the only Indian who's been overwhelmed at the sight of jumbo Chinese onions (the best variety in my hometown Kolkata is perhaps as big as a golf ball). A colleague's wife, who hails from India's culinary capital of Lucknow in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, says she's so inspired by the size of Chinese onions that she's been preparing fish or meat dishes every day.

Yet another acquaintance in Beijing, who is originally from New Delhi, sees to it that the onions she buys are finely chopped all in one go, to ensure "easy storage". She guiltily admits to buying more onions than she needs each week. A conditioned reflex, she adds.

To even laugh at our bizarre infatuation with the pungent, bulbous vegetable, one must understand the storied history of this Indian kitchen staple, a key ingredient in the common gravy base called masala.

According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times in December 2010, Chinese traveler Xuanzang visited India in the 7th century and, judging by his accounts, the onion remained "something of a medical and sensual sideshow for centuries". Ancient medical texts extolled its curative powers, but Hindu scriptures despised it as anathema to a life of meditation and austerity, Xuanzang wrote, according to the newspaper.

Roughly four decades ago, the onion became a tear-jerker beyond the kitchen, and a powerful tool to make or break governments in India. "The price of onions …has an almost mystical political significance," The New York Times said in an article in October 1998, ahead of the crucial state assembly elections in Delhi and Rajasthan, being fought over a range of issues including onion prices. The article referred to how former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi toppled the apple cart of Hindu nationalists and returned to power in 1980, waving onion garlands at political gatherings and assailing the central government for its failure to control food inflation. Incumbent governments in both states were routed in the 1998 polls.

In 2019, a kilogram of onions cost one-third of an average Indian's daily income, having hit a record high of 200 rupees ($2.79), sparking thefts, robberies and fist fights across the nation, and prompting the Narendra Modi government to release a raft of damage-control measures.

On a lighter note, it gave rise to maverick marketing strategies. For example, a vendor of China-made smartphones in eastern India logged record sales after he advertised that he'd give away a kilogram of onions with every model purchased. Memes on Twitter and TikTok became commonplace. One showed people paying taxi fares in India with onions instead of cash, while another suggested the onion would become a stronger currency than the US dollar and British pound. A famous comedian said he and his wife were conferring on how many onions they should keep in their safety deposit box.

Right now, onion prices in India are stable, thanks to a good harvest and zero external challenges to the supply chain. But perhaps there's no harm in putting away a few jumbo Chinese onions in a vault (climate-controlled, of course). At least my family will shed tears of joy during India's next great onion crisis.