Chasing Tomatoes.

"Seth!aap jaldo ajao. Tamatar ka bhao abhi kum hai".

This resulted into a sixty minute long distance call between my home town and the guy I was talking to in a village in Maharashtra. Took a flight to Bombay next day. The day after, at six in the morning left for the nearby bus station and boarded a handsome, airconditioned Volvo on my way to chase tomatoes. In the mean time, I had made about fifteen calls to book orders from Calcutta where tomatoes have literally caught fire in the market. The ultra-comfortable bus ride pushed me into a lazy, nice and feel-good day dream of many truck-loads of tomatoes and many more to come. The conductor broke the spell when I had to get off at my designated stop after four hours. Now boarded a state government bus that jumps, bounces & brakes without warning and is darn hot. I was on my way to Narayangaon. Reached after three bone-breaking hours. My local contact came after 35 minutes of wait. Rode his rickety bike to the whole sale market where tomatoes were being packed, unloaded and packed some more for different destinations. Things took a turn when my buyers insisted that I pack the tomatoes in wooden crates and do not send the same in plastic crates, as is the norm nowadays. They further insisted that I get the tomatoes from another source, 100 kilometres further up, instead of where I was. These, they insisted, were the "right stuff". Went to the bus stop on the same bike and literally stood on my feet or walked around for two hours until another of these bone-crushers arrived. The conductor did not take kindly to my sitting on the first seat. He is habituated to its sole occupancy, you see. I saw a MicroTek ticketing machine around his neck and began a chat. Three hours later, he dropped me off with a big "see you again" by the road side of a city I have never been before, knew nobody and honestly did not know where I would sleep that night. I have been on the road, now for close to fourteen hours and counting. The local contact asked me to settle into a motel as he was busy with the annual celebration of nav-ratri. I was damn cheesed off! But I had no choice. Next day one of his 'partner' (they have many!) arrived at my overnight sleeping joint. Less said about this place, the better. He and I boarded a share-taxi which almost got us killed! The floor of the car was so hot that we literally had to put our feet in the air!! When the driver was forced to stop to see the reason, we discovered the rear tyre had no tyre! The metal rim of the tyre was actually running on the road as the rubber of the tyre had completely worn off in two places!! I was staring it and didnt have a word to say! Reached Pipalgaon, the "right stuff" place, finally. Huge market!Huge, huge, huge! Crates, crates and more plastic crates every where! If you just see the number plates of the hundreds of trucks being loaded, you will immediately realise, India eats tomatoes at this market truly and fully! Can you believe my joy, when I realised that here I am, with the first truck to be loaded the same night and we will be on the way to bringning in organised arbitrage business in commodities. I could not have been further away from the truth! I was informed that the wooden boxes have to be nailed on top and the "specialists" are not in supply. Imagine this! Those who strike nails on wooden planks are "specialists" and they have become "unavailable" because the economics of the business has made them redundant! People stuff tomatoes in plastic crates and these are recycled. For two days and nights, I sat, walked, pleaded, sat again, slept on these game changing plastic crates and waited for these 'specialists'. None arrived.

I had to abandon my tomato chase.

The third morning, I took a bus and this time, came back to Mumbai without any day dreams. Chasing tomatoes does not end here, that is for sure. There is always a "one more (time)", as my little daughter says in her assured self confidence of twenty five months. Yes, there is always a next time!