Dough, Tomato & Ignorance: Why Literature Is the New Lactose Intolerance

(A Satirical Study in Deep-Fried Priorities)

By a Malnourished Bibliophile with Tomato Stains on Kindle

“Book sir? Two-hundred rupees extra, saar. ” The stall-wallah at the Sunday flea market will bargain like he’s refinancing your mortgage. But saunter into the same shopper’s Instagram, and you’ll find them grinning next to a 500-rupee, six-cheese, stuffed-crust monstrosity that looks like it lost a bet with cholesterol.

Friends, Indians, countrymen—lend me your indigestion. Somewhere between the mozzarella and the masochism we have decided that culture should come at a minimum-support-price, while junk food deserves the mafia rate with GST. Today we investigate why buying a book in India feels like asking your relatives for a dowry, but ordering pizza just needs a heartbreak or IPL final.

1. The Great Indian Foodflation of Self-Worth

Pizza performs a public service: it photographs well. You can hold a slice up to the camera like Simba on Pride Rock and caption “living my best life”. A book, however, is… suspiciously silent. You can’t filter Dostoevsky to look like a Goan sunset. Try pouting next to The Brothers Karamazov—you’ll look like you swallowed a periodic table. Indians run on visible dopamine: food posts, OOTDs, new phones. Books are the original zero-calorie content. They give you wisdom without waistline—a lethal proposition in a country that measures ambition by how many sizes your T-shirt grew after Diwali.

2. Maslow’s Hierarchy, Butter Chicken Layer

We’ve rewritten Maslow for Mumbai’s mood-swings:

1. Wi-Fi

2. Food delivery

3. Tagging friends so they know you’re eating

4. Breathing (optional)

“Self-actualisation” is what happens after you realise the swiggy coupon expired. That little pyramid never covered Chapter 3 of NCERT. A book is the intellectual equivalent of going to the gym: you know you should, you swear tomorrow you’ll start, yet somehow you are back at “Try the triple-cheese burst for only ₹50 more?” It is easier to buy abs on an app than abs of steel via knowledge. Plus, knowledge does not come with oregano seasoning.

3. GST: GastroStandardised Therapy

Pizza has a business model; books have a business problem. The pizza guy drops pamphlets like political flyers. The poor book, meanwhile, is banished to sale racks under “Buy 2, Get 1 Free, And Still Nobody Gives a Damn” signs. Every bookstore in India looks like it’s apologising for existing: “Sorry sir, we also stock greeting cards. "Meanwhile pizza chains spend lakhs to make you feel their mozzarella was personally blessed by Venkateshwara. Booksellers? Their marketing budget is whatever the moth ate.

4. The Arithmetic of Aspiration

Let’s do the nauseating math:

• Average Domino’s bill for two: ₹500 (plus 18 % GST for government gyms you’ll never visit).

• Average paperback: ₹250. A single book can give you 10–50 hours of consciousness-expansion, career-changing insights, or at least better smalltalk on Hinge.

  
  

  For the price of one over-sweetened Coke float you could own Half of a Yellow Sun and still have change leftover for an actual yellow sun.

Try telling that to your cousin, though. “Bhai, ₹250 for paper? I could buy two plates of momos and a fake Jordan at Sarojini!”

5. Literature Is the New Lactose Intolerance

Pizza, unlike Proust, never triggered anyone’s allergies—unless lactose counts. Books, however, attack people’s core beliefs: “What do you mean success isn’t just H1B and hydrafacial?” No wonder readers are treated like insufferable vegans who also happen to pay rent.

6. Hashtag Hunger Games

Instagram bios read: “Foodie | Wanderlust | Sapiosexual” (translation: “Will travel 400 km for biryani but swipe left on anyone caught reading outside an airport”). The algorithm loves dripping cheese, hates dripping philosophy. Ever seen a reel captioned “POV: You’re reading Man’s Search for Meaning at 2 a.m.?” No. Because the only search at 2 a.m. is for garlic bread.

7. The Resale Horror

Buy a 500-rupee pizza: twenty minutes of joy, three hours of guilt, infinity of regret—zero resale value. Buy a 250-rupee novel: can resell to the same cousin who just discovered Chettinad rolls. Books are literally risk-free crypto that also teach you how crypto works. Yet the cousin will still haggle. “Bhai, second-hand for ₹100? It’s got ‘Made in Noida’ smell nah, adjust...”

8. Cultural Crumbs: From Ghalib to Garlic Bread

Our grandparents read Ghalib. Our parents bought Manorama Yearbooks. We? We buy Ghalib-inspired momos (₹150 for six). The cultural baton is a breadstick. India produced the Arthashastra yet today we find ourselves more moved by the artery-shastra of a deep-dish. We chant “knowledge is power” while frantically googling pizza-base recipes at 1 a.m. We’ve reduced wisdom to something you torrent, while paying 82 rupees to rent Transformers 7 in HD.

9. Five People You Meet on a Book-Budget

• The Coupon Collector: “Order pizza, bro. Use code ‘DUMBELLS’ to get extra cheese and a gym day-pass I’ll never redeem.”• The ROI Ranter: “Bro, ROI on pizza is immediate gastric ROI. Books? I’ll forget half of them after Insta stories disappear.”• The Status Stuffer: “But dude, if I check in at Literati, no one cares. If I check in at Toit—250 likes! ”• The Diet Denialist: “Books make you fat… with information, bhai.”• The Cultural Capitalist: “I’m waiting for the movie adaptation on Torrent-GPT.”

10. A Modest Proposal (not for eating)

Next time you see that mouth-watering 500-rupee pizza, order the ₹250 book instead. Split-screen your brain between the calories you didn’t consume and the calories knowledge will burn in your skull. Post the cover page like a trophy. Caption it “cheesy”, but with words. I promise the dopamine is slower, but lasts longer than indigestion. And unlike the pizza base, it won’t give you existential gas.

Also, remember that every time you under-pay an author, somewhere a pizza place raises prices “due to inflation”. Inflation of the human mind is permanent stagflation, bhai.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my copy of Sapiens is getting jealous while I stare at the Domino’s tracker. Going to placate it with some ghee-roast dosa—not because dosa is healthier, but because even my stomach has better reading-list priorities than my wallet.