Couple of weeks ago we went for our usual grocery shopping with rice as the priority item as I was down to last handful after a small party I threw at home. Usually the brand I buy is stocked up high in the shelves and I never found the need to buy more than a month’s requirement. But I guess times are changing now. Yes, we did read about the high demand of rice, the export ban on Indian Basmati, the global rice crisis as it is now called. But as always the feeling is “oh! Its something that will not affect us”. Well with that cosy comfy thought we had gone out shopping for rice.

 

Now the shocker…... our preferred brand of rice was nowhere to be seen. We ask one of the shop assistants and she says it is available but yet to be priced and hence displayed. I almost beg her to give me a bag as without one we would have to go riceless the next day! Her boss comes up and says wait a few minutes and one of the store assistants re-stocks my brand. Of course how can she let go of a customer who will pay her enough dollars for a 10lbs bag. Infact I would have bought the bag even if it was 3 times the original cost. Why? Because rice is the staple diet for us and chappatis are a one off affair for weekends or “oru changeukku”. Seeing the prices of other brands of rice that have hit the roof, we decide to get a few extra bags. I move to the payment counter and wait for my turn.

 

The cashier on seeing the 4 bags (10lbs each) rice asks me "intne bags leke kya karoge?"(what are you going to do with so many bags of rice?). I stare at her perplexed. "What a dumb question" goes thru my mind. Then she says that there is a limit per customer of 2 bags. I jokingly say she can count my hubby and me as 2 separate customers and give us the 4 bags. WIth my toddler beginning to get cranky, and considering the fact that we are one of their regular customer  they relent and sell me the bags. 

Since then I have been on the lookout for my favourite brand of rice in various super markets and have stocked up for at least 2 months now. The price has since doubled and stocks decimated. 

So thats the rice situation half way around the world.