I Spent ₹400 on Dry Fruits at a Local Shop. Then I Weighed Them.
The Handful That Made Me Question Everything About My Snacking I guess this is one of my traditions. Every winter season, without fail, I purchase a little packet of assorted dried fruits from the local store near my metro station. The man at the counter will fill up a paper bag with some almonds, cashews, perhaps some raisins, give me a number, and I’ll just pay him that amount without much thought. But last December something weird happened. My wife had bought a kitchen scale — one of those flat digital ones — for some baking experiment she never actually did. It sat on the counter for weeks doing absolutely nothing. And one evening, out of sheer boredom, I dropped my freshly purchased bag of dry fruits onto it. 280 grams. I’d paid ₹400. Now look, I’m not great at math. But even I could tell that was genuinely absurd when a quick phone search showed me the going rate for decent almonds online. I felt like someone who’d been tipping 60% at restaurants without realizing it. That was th...