Gandhinagar: When a fly was found in Amul milk in Mumbai way back in the last century, Dr. Verghese Kurien had suggested a postmortem of the fly, suspecting foul play. Kurien’s logic was simple: if the fly had milk in its lungs, then it had drowned in the milk; but if not, then a dead fly had been planted in the milk to frame Amul.

Journalist Japan K Pathak, in a video conversation, recalled this incident while discussing the recent spurt in reporting of insects, bugs, and lizards in food items from across Gujarat.

Pathak quoted Kurien from the latter’s book, “‘Once the milk scheme officials claimed to have found a fly in the milk we supplied, a huge hue and cry was raised and the media splashed the news. I immediately suspected foul play and suggested to the Milk Commissioner’s office that they should do a post mortem of the fly. I wanted to see if the fly had milk in its lungs – if so, then it had drowned in the milk, but if not, then a dead fly had been put in there to frame our cooperatives.'”

Pathak said this while pointing out the possibility of foul play in some of the reported incidents of finding bugs in food items. He said, “There are three kinds of reporting in such cases. One set of reporting is genuine and truthful. The other kind of reporting is foul play for publicity. The third kind of reporting is for harming the reputation or business of some renowned brands for whatsoever reasons.”

He added that such reports have increased with the spread of mobile phone cameras. “In the 1990s, people would occasionally call newspaper offices to report the presence of a lizard in a capped cold drink bottle. They would call press photographers to take pictures of such bottles. However, it was seen that if one such photo would go to print, there would be a spurt of such reports soon. The genuineness of such reporting was in question and newspapers had stopped publishing such news or photographs.”

He mentioned a recent incident where a family found a dead lizard in soup served at a highway-side hotel near Vadodara. “The complaint was genuine, but when the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) was approached, they merely fined that restaurant and didn’t seal it. The family also observed that while they were complaining about finding a dead lizard in their soup, other customers on the floor continued to consume food, and the restaurant continued to be in business after the incident without any major consequences.”

He said that despite the trust deficit caused by numerous such incidents, people continue to eat out. However, a message has been conveyed to them that home-cooked food is the best. Brands will need to earn the trust of people like Amul, whose products pass all tests and never disappoint the customer.

The conversation in Gujarati can be watched in the embedded video here in this article. DeshGujarat.