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“If they don’t have bread, give them cakes to eat,” Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, said famously at the time of the French Revolution looking at the condition of the hoi polloi. Though people love to break bread, its scarcity and soaring prices played its role in giving rise to public anger and toppling Louis XVI in France.
We are nowhere near a revolution but the recent increase in the price of bread by Rs 5 is set to burn a hole in the pocket of the common man. All bread manufacturing companies are reported to have increased the rates, mostly due to a hike in the price of refined flour and other items. A shortage of wheat in the open market and increase in the price of varieties supplied by agencies like the Food Corporation of India (FCI) are said to be the reasons behind the hike in the price of bread.
As one read the report, one could not help asking the neighbourhood food stall owner who sells the more mundane variant of roti, how he manages. His clientele is a mix of government staff, local residents and the more plebeian rickshaw-puller and other workers who order either a take-away, sit down on the neatly laid out seats on the ground for a meal or keep the plate on the bonnet of their vehicles to eat.
Jatinder and Rajkumar serve lunch and dinner at their roadside eatery in Sector 30, which is open till 10 pm at night. The price of a single roti is Rs 5 at their stall. If you order a meal, it comes to Rs 40, which includes four rotis, dal and a sabzi, reasonable but by no means cheap. The flour is purchased from the mandi and is usually a packet of 50 kg which comes for Rs 1,200-Rs 1,300 and lasts barely a week. They have no staff and the family does the work itself, the two sons being assisted by their mother.
What margin of profit they have in a roti priced Rs 5, Jatinder refuses to share, but it is obviously enough to keep them going. And they do not increase the price of roti in case the price of wheat flour increases.
At some of the more well-known eateries, the price of a roti could be Rs 8 or Rs 10 while the naan, kulcha, missi and rumali roti are costlier. And obviously, the bulk purchase a likely factor in the price negotiation.
For those from the lowest rung of society, spending Rs 80 on two meals a day, is quite a sum. That it is doing well is an indicator that despite the rising prices, people are able to and willing to pay, need overriding economic concerns, ensuring continuity. Roti is symbolic of not just food but our battle for subsistence, our daily grind, sweat and the toil.