Mystery Solved !

Last Sunday as we emerged from the neighbourhood Indian restaurant, sufficiently gorged on the excellent all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, this sign on the adjacent desi grocery drew attention:

"Due to FLUCTUATIONS in DAL prices, all DAL Sales are Final"

I wondered briefly about when it was that the ubiquitous DAL (lentils) had become such a hot commodity and whether I should be calling my (imaginary) investment manager to change my (imaginary) portfolio and exchange my (imaginary) stocks in oil companies for pulse farming coops and suchlike.

Also, I wondered – why Dal ? In the crockpot of culinary diversity that is India – it is the pulses that unite us. Lentils are that staplelest of staple for most Indian palates. So why ?

At that moment, I could have simply gone into the store and asked the dude at the counter. But then, no one has accused me of thinking quickly on the feet – especially when you have the equivalent of a whole goat reassembling in your digestive system, draining blood from the brain. That and the scorching humid 90 degrees weather was seducing me towards a quick siesta. So I left it as one of those mysteries we’d never know the answer to – like who killed JFK ?

But today, thanks to the those hard-working, roving url-hunters from Desipundit, I found someone who has the solution. It seems like dal export from India has been banned !

 Hmmm…….so first they take your blogs, then they come for the dal……!!

UPDATE: gawker examines in further depth, the true horror that has been unleashed on desi populations all over the US. He rightly calls dal the "……the Indian’s ground beef and chicken cordon bleu, all in one." He also offers a convenient solution:

you raise a decent sized Indian family. And then, look for all the Indian stores within a 50 mile radius and make the rounds with each family member going into each store in turn to receive his or her allotted ration of dal.