Everyone knows who eats lots of carrots. Bunny rabbits. At least that’s what popular children’s literature and cartoons would have us believe. But did you know that in the real world rabbits do not naturally eat root vegetables? Me neither. I bet whoever made those cartoons and wrote those children’s books didn’t either, and look where we are now. You say carrots and the picture of a cute bunny rabbit nibbling on them comes to mind. Of course rabbits love carrots, but only when someone has dug them out for them first.

Anyways…

There is someone else who comes to mind when the topic of eating carrots crops up. Kitty. ‘Kitty, who?’ you ask perplexed, and well may you do so. First and foremost, she is not a kitty, if you know what I mean, not the meowing kind anyway , but a full grown human and the bumbling assistant, or secretary or you can even call her a sidekick to the maverick detective Karamchand. Wait! I know what your next question is going to be. ‘Karamchand, who?’ Right? I am prescient or what!

I don’t blame you for going who-who just then, like a bally owl if I may add. Karamchand and Kitty are not some world-famous duo and are known only to the few Indians who, a few decades back, sat glued to the idiot box to watch the only channel on air. Karamchand is the super clever sleuth in the show by the same name, and Kitty his bumbling sidekick who follows him around adoringly. Whenever she offers some solution, which invariably is stupid, she is put in her place by a display of superior intelligence by the show-off of a boss.

Now to the carrot connection. Every time Kitty is dazzled by her boss’s brilliance, she deftly pulls out a carrot from her coat pocket, bites off a piece and chomps on it thoughtfully. No prizes for guessing why. Duh! She wants to become as brilliant a detective as him too. And she believes carrots are the way. Don’t ask me why. I have absolutely no idea.

By the way, there is someone else who eats carrots. And that’s me. Morning, noon and night, I have carrots on the menu. Raw. Eaten much the same way as bunnies and Kitty do. And cucumbers too, the salad kind. I love vegetables and don’t shy away from eating them. But when the dietician insisted that I eat MORE of them, and include MORE of the raw kind, I started munching on carrots and cucumbers in a seriously. Like really seriously.

In fact friends ask me how I can eat raw carrots and cucumbers day in and day out in this manner. No dressing, not even salt or pepper. Just sliced and cold. I am nonplussed at their query. To me it is just something that needs to be done. And truly speaking they are not all that bad, especially when eaten as the first thing at meal times, and also when hungry. By the way, sometimes I snack on them between meals too.

That brings me to cucumbers. Why are they such a neglected lot? No cartoons or stories about them. No animals campaigning for them in the same way as bunnies, or humans, like Kitty. Hmm… I seem to be their sole champion as of now. Not that I am ever going to nibble on them like bunnies or pull one out of my pockets a la Kitty. Still I suppose cucumbers would take me any day. Hey! “She mentioned us in her blog. How cool is that!” Somebody is after all better than nobody, right?

©️ Shail Mohan 2024