I was visiting a public office to submit some application. There was no one at the counter. And there was no one at the seat to man the counter. The only indication of human presence at the seat was a neat pile of groundnuts (moongfalis) next to the pile of empty shells of the same, on the table.
“Sir,” I addressed the guy at the next counter, “when this sir will be available?”
“No idea,” he replied without looking at me. Then he eyed the pile of moongfalis and commented, “he will be back.”
It was the dawn of a new knowledge. Moongfalis denote the presence of a human being in an office. Archeology department found remains of civilization which was thousands of years old. In one building, remnants of moongfali were found. All the scientists agreed that it must be a government office.
I realized the national importance of groundnuts only after I joined the government job. I had to travel by bus to the village of my posting and the bus would depart every hour. Waiting time at the bus stand was spent taking out the nuts from the shells by the majority of the people. Nuts would go into the waiting mouths and the shells would litter the floor. It was the same scene in the bus. There was no hesitation in discarding the shells onto the floor of the bus.
Curiosity got better of me and I also joined the groundnut bandwagon. But then I was a patriotic consumer and decided not to litter. I started using my pockets first. I put whole groundnuts in one pocket, eat the nuts and stuff the shells in the other pocket. It was a movement like assembly line production. Take out one groundnut, break the shell, consume the nut, stuff the shell in the other pocket. It was going well till the day washing machine stopped working because of stuck shells.
Then I started asking the vendor for one extra paper bag to stuff the shells. But then I realised, shells occupy more than double the space of intact groundnuts. The vendor was also not very happy parting with the extra paper bag. The option was either the pocket or the bus floor. I kept a balance between being patriotic and savior of the washing machine.
There is nothing wrong in eating groundnuts. Moongfalis have great nutritional as well as time-pass value.
I too keep groundnuts in my office drawer, but make sure no one catches me with one in my hand or mouth. More than giving out a wrong impression, I don’t want to share my prized possession.
Let groundnuts be declared our national nuts.
