All for a Pack of Eggs

It's been more than three years since my wife and I quit our jobs and left Tokyo for life in small-town Japan (India as well, though not relevant here). The move introduced me to lot of new things, of which the thing that most intrigued me was this egg mania. When we were in Tokyo, we did most of our grocery shopping on the way back from work at nearby supermarkets and stores, rarely bothering about the prices. Unless of course something is priced obscenely high, which is not uncommon in Japan.

For instance, there are these mangoes at some shops which costs 3 to 4,000 yens (about 1,200 to 1,500Rs) per mango. They look fabulous - good, identical shape and colour - but you don't really know how it smells because it is quintuple-packed in cellophane wrap, plastic net, Styrofoam plate, plastic cover and cute wooden box, with a li'l bit of straw thrown around to give the feeling that it was plucked from some downtown orchard in Shinjuku. I had the misfortune to buy one of this (at a cheaper rate from a friendly wholesaler). Well, it tasted like ***t, or in civilized language - chalk. And no smell! These are grown in a southern Japanese island on stunted trees in paper bags or some such thing. I hope one day they'll get to taste real mangoes. I think it was Madhur Jaffrey who wrote about Americans finally going to get some real mangoes after India signed the nuclear and other trade deals allowing mango imports from India last year.

And those bananas. Yuck! I don't know if the Filipinos and Taiwanese (which is where most of the bananas here are from) really eat the bananas they export. Probably not. Perhaps it's their revenge for the Japanese atrocities during WWII. Interesting episode: I forced a Japanese friend who visited India earlier this year to try out one from the numerous varieties we have back home. She hated bananas and hadn't touched one in twenty odd years, but after that first bite she was hooked and had bananas everyday till the day she went back. She's probably back into hate-bananas mode now.

I have totally veered off the track... Getting back to the egg story. After we moved here, we started subscribing to a Japanese newspaper as well. And these papers come with different flyers from various stores with the stuff they're selling, the prices and the day's discount etc. And once every week or so there is this 100-yen eggs day, or about 38Rs (less than a $) for a pack of 10 eggs. This, for some reason, triggers normal, peace-loving, law-abiding people to do really absurd things. For one, everybody from around a 1,000-mile radius seems to wait for this particular day to buy eggs. My wife and I also join the herd of mostly housewives and elderly people most of these days. The store is jam-packed with people rushing to get the one-pack/person eggs and then rushing to the counter. Things turn ugly here. There are huge intertwining queues of hundreds of people standing at each counter, most of them willing to wait out hours (Do they eat one of those raw eggs sneakily to gain energy?). Luckily, the Japanese don't get physically violent and no one carries guns here. So, it's just a tense atmosphere with people seething at 90-year old women trying to pay in one-yen coins and at bulky foreigner and wife buying 2 packs ("because we are two individuals, OK?"). I was wondering whether I could take a third pack as I usually have my 2-year old son with me. Technically he is an individual and has to buy tickets on international flights.

Some days I just wait outside in the car. This is in a small street behind the store with very less traffic. Many of the housewives and guys rushing to buy eggs park their cars there. This is Japan and parking your car wherever you like is just not allowed. One day, I was sitting there with my hazard lamps blinking and engine running (which is kind of allowed sometimes) when the police car came along. After the regular announcements and such he went on to stick parking fines on all those cars. Mighty nice!!! Probably about 10,000yen, though I'm not sure. How did that egg taste that day? A 1,010yen egg. Better than the 4,000yen mango, I'm sure. Why do people take such risks? Beats me.

Anyway, Sunday ho ya Monday, khao andey! - Sunday or Monday, it's eat egg day!