Please pass the low-calorie butter substitute

Oi, what happened to the butter? There isn't any available anywhere! Not in Thane, where I live. I believe not even in Gurgaon. And is apparently very hard to come by even in Mumbai. Don't know about the rest of the nation, but I suspect it's much the same.

So where did it all go? Have the cows and buffalos imposed a ban on the production of butter, all other dairy produce being spared the same fate. You get plenty of cheese, buttermilk, cream, yogurt. But not butter. Not the scrumptious, golden, creamy spread that can transform an ordinary piece of morning toast into a bite of bliss, inject magic into a baked dish. My older son loves the stuff, as does my husband. They're missing it sorely. And the baked goodies coming out of my kitchen are missing a little bit of their magic.

What's even more strange is the fact that the shortage is across the board - all manufacturers. Amul, Mother Dairy, Britannia. I didn't even know of the scarcity till about a fortnight ago when we finished the last half-kilo slab of butter in our fridge. The shops told us they hadn't had any fresh stock in for more than a month! You do get some unsalted, white butter from Parsi Dairy (and I now stock that for baking emergencies), but it isn't quite the same thing.

This mysterious shortage is good news for some. Zydus-Cadila is making a killing! Its low-calorie table spread Nutralite, which it positions as a healthier alternative to butter, is flying off the shelves. So high is the demand that the company is finding it hard to keep up. Now Nutralite ain't bad, but it isn't a patch on the real stuff.

I remain baffled. Will someone please tell me what's going on? Where's the butter? And howcome no one has written about this? Is no one else curious? I'm not a big eater of the stuff, but butter is a constant in our fridge and is consumed in fair quantities in our home. It is missed.