Uff uff mirchi!

What'd be hotter, you wonder. The dry red chillies and the scorching summer compete as the merciless sun sends shadows scurrying at the weekly market in Gadhinglaj town on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border. But they are no match for the feisty Baijabai Ingulkar weighing out chillies at her makeshift outlet. A customer asks her to halve the Rs.150 a kilo price only to have a volley of Kolhapuri expletives thrown at him. "The red in these chillies is from my sweat and blood. You aren't doing me favours by buying from me," the 55-year-old calls after him, using her pallu to wipe the sweat from her face. But the anger vanishes in a trice as an old woman approaches. Baijabai lovingly enquires after her health and even offers her a discount of Rs.10 per kilo.

The fiery matriarch, who has been forced to set up shop after unseasonal rains spoilt the crop, epitomises the many troubles farmers are facing. But her smile rarely fails to reach her eyes. "I was told by my late mother not to stay angry or frown all the time. It drives Lakshmi away. If hardship and labour are my destiny what can I do?"
Fatalism is perhaps the only way of dealing with the losses she's suffered due to the rains. "When the crop grew this high (indicating about two feet with her hand) and began flowering, I was so happy," says the widowed mother of two daughters who lost her young son to snakebite two years ago. "By March the chillies had all filled out and I hoped to be able to write off my debts with the bountiful crop."

Accordingly, chillies were picked and set for drying in the sun. It then began raining. "We tried to pick up mounds of chillies as fast as we could but most of them got wet. Once wet, the chilli loses flavour, can rot and is not crackling dry enough to pound into powder. Local traders refuse to take them, so now I'm going to weekly markets in villages around selling a sack-load or two which I dry out," explains Baijabai, who hitched a ride with a better-off neighbour and his wife in a tempo they hired to sell their own produce of haldi, rice and tur.

And on to Mumbai
While the vagaries of climate have hit farmers across the chilli growing regions of Andhra Pradesh (with 26% area under chilli), Maharashtra (15%) Karnataka and Orissa (11% each) and Madhya Pradesh (7%) for the second consecutive year, end-consumers are beleaguered with prices which keep finding new roofs to go through.
Over 430 km away from Gadhinglaj, in Mumbai, the same chillies sell for Rs.280 a kilo. Malamma Malepu, 34, a resident of a shanty near the tracks in Kalwa, wonders what she should get to eat from home when out begging. "I pound dry chillies, garlic and coarse salt and get it with ragi rotis. First we dropped the groundnuts because they became out of bounds, then the tamarind which we can't afford anymore, now if chillies too become out of bounds what do we eat?" asks this mother who brings her two children, eight and 10 years old, to the Juhu Chowpatty sands to beg for alms.

But it's not like only the abject poor who are complaining. At Mirchi Gully, one of Mumbai's oldest markets, Vile Parle resident Pradnya Pednekar rolls her eyes skywards when told that Sankeshwari chillies cost Rs.280 per kilo. "Kaai he? Sona aahe ka? (What is this? Is this gold?)" On her annual summer trip post-work to the Mirchi Gully to buy chillies, she has bought 1.5 kilos each of Byadgee and Sankeshwari chillies. "The former gives the Malvani fish curry the right red colour and the Sankeshwari gives it the bite."

Though packaged brands are catching on, the belief in the tradition of buying chillies to pound into red chilli powder endures for most, with every region and even sub-region clear about favourites.

Why chillies?
"Endorphins are released when the brain responds to capsaicin, a chemical in the capsicum pod which makes them hot. When eaten this chemical is released into the mouth where nerve endings set off an alarm. The brain thinks the body is in distress and opens the sluice gates. The mouth and eyes water, palpitation increases, the nose drips and the scalp perspires," explains nutritionist Anjali Vaidya.

"The role of capsanthin which gives chillies their red colour too can't be discounted." According to her, chillies are rich in Vitamin A and C. "They have a lot of potassium, magnesium and iron packed in them too. These immunity boosters, lower cholesterol and also rid the gut of its parasites."

Wonder if any of these benefits will help Baijabai...