Owner of world's biggest onion wants to kill himself

Guntur. Harish Rao, 27 year old farmer from Yedlapalli village near Guntur of Andhra Pradesh owns the field in which world's largest onion is growing. The onion is already 20 meters in diameter and expected to grow another 3-4 meters in next few weeks. If price of onion continues upward momentum then in next 2-3 weeks Rao's onion could be worth upwards of Rs 200 crores.

However, soon after a local newspaper published reports about the onion, Harish has been facing problems on daily basis. Firstly it was a film director, infamous for creating super flop version of Sholay who started pressurizing him to finance his next movie on a local gangster. Some of the actresses associated with the director even tried to seduce Rao which has brought his married life to ruins. Furthermore, a singer credited with creating musical therapy for constipation called "jhalak dikhla ja, ek baar aaja aaja aaja" has approached him for funding his new venture "mmmannnnn ka TV". The singer sent Harish an iPod loaded with his upcoming songs. Harish a vegetarian who understands little of Hindi was unimpressed by the songs which were mostly about tandoori, kurma and kebabs.

Some people from film fraternity have offered genuine help as well. For instance Akshay Kumar said in a statement “Even my critics agree I have given a very strong string of flops, if the string helps Harish in extraction and transportation of the onion I would feel it has served its purpose.” A rival actor who celebrated when recent Akshay movie flopped, sensed conspiracy in Akshay's gesture. "You see, he is having difficult time breaking the string himself", he said.

Not to be left behind, a range of entrepreneurs have approached Harish for Venture Capital. A group of software engineers wanted Harish to be part of their company which sells virtual medicinal plants on facebook. CEO of the company Hari Sadhu told the reporter that a person can grow herbs like tulsi, ginger, cloves in his Farmville and send them fresh to friends suffering from cold. “What’s the use of posting ‘get well soon’ on the wall which does not help the patient anyway” said Sadhu. He commented on Harish, "With his real life farming experience and ability to fund operations for foreseeable future, partnership with Harish will be a win-win proposition for us". Harish is finding it hard to evaluate such business ideas.

Meanwhile in district revenue department babus were busy preparing plans to get the onion farm under government control. "We may notify the land for a national highway, or for setting up agricultural research center whichever will be faster" said an officer. With lot of money from the government coffers going out in scams, government needs additional sources of revenue for continuing further scams. "This is serious matter for government as it is directly linked to livelihood of lakhs of civil servants and politicians" said a mandal revenue officer.

Harish is paying thousands of rupees every day for tents in which his earlier unknown 450 relatives are staying next to his house. He faces emotional blackmail from all of them who want him to solve their financial problems. A vexed Harish threatened to commit suicide because he is unable to take the stress. "No government, filmmaker, relatives, and engineers came to help me when I had to sell my kidney to buy fertilizers" said Harish with grief.