Tomatonomics

The humour, the stories and what could have been done about tomato inflation

- Puja Mehra

It’s time for inflation jokes again – high prices of tomatoes in India have caught car toonists’ attention. But first, the real news stories about some incredible stuff that has happened. According to a report in Quartz, people in the district of Pithoragarh, Uttrakhand, are beating the soaring prices of tomatoes by crossing over to Nepal and picking up the kitchen stable from there, as the prices there are about half the going rates in India.

Most newspapers, including The Times of India, have a rather interesting story from the Shahdol district in Madhya Pradesh. A man, who runs a tiffin business, ended up in a fight with his wife after he had used two tomatoes while cooking a meal without asking her. His wife then packed her bags and walked out along with their daughter, forcing the man to seek the police’s help to secure their return. BBC reported that a vegetable seller in Pune smacked a customer in the face with a weighing scale for bickering over tomato prices. And, in Varanasi, a politician hired two bouncers to prevent people from haggling over tomato prices at his shop.

Worried over the political fallout, the government launched a Tomato Grand Challenge Hackathon in Delhi to collect ideas from the public on possible ways to tackle the rising prices. Meanwhile, there have been reports of people stealing tomatoes from fields and tomato-transporting trucks. In other news, McDonald’s has dropped tomatoes from its menu in a number of outlets.