India’s New Weapon – Bhut Jalokia

I always suspected Indian chili peppers were good for something more earth-shattering than merely spicing up our food. Well now the Indian military has discovered the true value of the formidable Bhut Jalokia chili pepper from Assam which is 100 times hotter than the Jalapeno. It will be used in smoke grenades to battle unruly mobs and nasty terrorists.

It’s not for nothing that the bhut or ghost pepper holds the Guinness World Record for being the hottest pepper ever. “The 3in-long stubbly red pepper has been measured at 1,041,427 units on the Scoville scale, twice as hot as the next fieriest pepper, the Mexican red savina, and 200 times hotter than Tabasco sauce, so much so that it gained a place in Guinness World Records. A jalapeño, by contrast, registers a measly 10,000 on the Scoville scale,” writes the Guardian.

The Christian Science Monitor sent out Taylor Barnes, its own courageous correspondent to test out the Bhut Jalokia at the wholesale offices of Ravi Arora, a chili trader, in Navi Mumbai.

“Chili broker Ashit Mehta, whom Arora calls the “Chili Kingpin of India,” is adamant that the Indian military needs to do testing on the aftereffects of the bhut jolokia grenade. He says traditional tear gases “only have this eye burning sensation,” but with bhut jolokia, they will burn the skin as well.”

So how hot is the Bhut? Writes Barnes, “Two small touches to just my tongue and a nibble later, my upper lip suddenly seemed to be pressed down against a hotplate. I began to lose feeling in my nose. I understood why Mehta had said this pepper was an unfair weapon. (He also said this year’s crop was much weaker than usual.)

Whether from fear or the weapon itself, I sweated for half an hour afterward.”

Being a mad chili lover, these hot tales made me want to try out the Bhut myself, and I did some window shopping on Google. After the announcement by the Indian army, Bhut Jalokia seems to be all over the Internet in scores of stories about India’s latest weapon against terrorism.  Talk about low tech in this era of high tech!

Chili lovers, however,  seem to have known about the explosive Bhut Jalokia  all along, if the amount of Bhut Jalokia seeds, plants, sauces and recipes are to be believed. Why, you can even go on Amazon.com and purchase Bhut Jalokia pepper plants for just $9.99.

Remember the grand finale of the Ketan Mehta movie ‘Mirchi’ in which the powerless village women take on the injustice of unreasonable men with the dynamite of the red chillies drying in their courtyard? So you can grow the Bhut Jalokia and keep it on hand – to feed or to fight!