StyleSpeak: THE FRUIT OF THE LAND By Wendell Rodricks
They arrived one morning, silently, near my regular breakfast fare of warm water, fruit, oats and green tea. In the pale morning light, they glowed burgundy red. Freshly washed. Freshly plucked. For a brief few seconds, I went through the fog of youth to identify them. What were these jewels in the bowl? Ignoring the breakfast, I pick up one of the fruit. Smaller than a kokum, almost like a cherry. A thorn at the bottom. A wondrous sweet sour taste, the pulp segued to a few pips. Instant recall.....Jagmas (Zomgam). We used to pick them on the Colvale hills. Remember gently rolling them in our palms to "sweeten" them.
Suddenly I was eight years old again. Each March and April, we were on the hills. Word-of-mouth maps in our heads showed the way to the wild fruits. In the Camurlim valley were three Zambllam (jambool) trees. We would scamper up like monkeys and within minutes collect bags full of the purple treasure. We would proudly drag the bags to Xennoi Vaddo and devour the zambllams; drizzled with salt. The seeds were dried and ground to a powder (used as an ancient cure for diabetes). Early in the season, little cream berries (churnam) appear on the hills. Their creamy nectar has a very subtle flavour. Like a custard apple. There were also little red berries (poddkovam) with similar creamy centers. They are like polished, miniature, red apples.
But from all the fruit, the best are the humble kanttam (carvandah). How we treasured those! We pick the raw green kanttam to make pickle. They ooze a sticky, white sap when plucked from the shrubs. I keep track of the kanttam bushes and watch as they go from apple green to plum black. Some kanttam have red flesh. Others white. We would play guessing games. "Cock or bull?" Cock was red flesh. Guessing correct ensured a fruit gleaned from the opponents stash. Loosing meant a mock, tearful farewell from one's bounty. The kanttam were carried home in large leaves fashioned into cones by threading with a dry stalk from the hillside.
During this season, kokum trees would also bear fruit. We were permitted to eat a few; most were dried in the sun to flavour the monsoon curries. The kokum trees are beautiful to behold, with their shady branches and elegant leaves. The prettiest sight though is cashew trees in April. Like Christmas tree baubles in yellow, orange and red, the trees also offer us their tender kernels in March...to make tender cashewnut caldeen.
Living in a village, one quickly learns the road map to fruit bearing trees. Some are in public places...the bora tree on the way to my studio, the beddsam (small jambool) tree on the way to the Colvale church, the kanttam bushes on the hills and the teflam bushes beyond Mrs. Lobo's boundary wall. Some fruit treasures lie in private gardens. I am amused when people from Tivim arrive at our Colvale doorstep to buy our mankurada mangoes. Such is the fame of their sweet, heavenly perfumed flesh. The demand is only for the mankuradas from "that tree on the left of the entrance". Sadly that tree is barren this year. Two unseasonal rains in January and February ensured that the blooms met a watery death. The wise two hundred year old tree actually bloomed a second time after the first washout. Then wisely decided to teach us a global warming lesson by not flowering after the second rain. In fact, we have a dismal mango crop this year. There must be no more than a dozen fruit bearing mango trees in all of Colvale this year. One happens to be on the way to my studio. The other is in the Southern corner of our garden. An old tree with perfect Monserrate mango fruit. My mother uses these robustly-flavoured-but-not-sweet mangoes to make mangad jam.
I know we are blessed living in our Goan villages when my godson Arhan stayed with us over Easter week with his glam mum Malaika Arora Khan. Over breakfast with garden papayas, he looked heavenward and asked if he could have coconut water from one of the dozen trees in the garden. Within minutes, three fresh tender coconuts appeared on the breakfast table.
When I purchased the house in Colvale from the Braganzas, we inherited an orchard with every variety of mango. Ten varieties in all. A rare Alphonso. Gigantic Appos. Red Malges. Perfumed Monserrates. Delicious Mankuradas. Late ripening Fernandes. One Pairee. One "sucking mango". And many grafted varieties of all of the above. Also in the garden are the sour beembli, lime, chickoo, custard apple, jackfruit and guava. The latter attracts parrots; but more often, fruit bats. The most majestic of all is the Adao(Adams apple) tree. It's tall, straight trunk was prized to make boat masts in the old days. Today they bestow on us dozens of Adao fruit which look, and taste, like dates. To the lot, my mother (the constant gardener) advised me to plant mulberry shrubs and love apples. The mulberry’s, as Mom predicted, did attract a lot of bird song. Each day I watch koyel, mynah, bulbul and woodpigeon feast on the ruby red mulberries. The love apple ended up being the pink skinned variety. Their delicate, beautiful flowers resemble tiny sea anemones.
I have yet to see the fruit of my Sunday gardening on some trees I planted. Breadfruit, grapefruit and pomello are some of them. I have learnt patience with trees. They bear fruit when we are deserving of them.
Often on Sundays, we are invaded by monkeys. As many as forty at a time. They do not cause much harm. In fact, they are very intelligent. The gun-toting neighbour who threatened them has not enjoyed a single banana from his garden. The monkeys destroy his banana crop each season. On the other hand, because we do not threaten the monkeys, they pluck a few mangoes and devour new leaves. My philosophy is that we humans took away their forest. Now we need to let them have space and fruit from our gardens. A few broken tiles a year are not such a big deal!
The same with the cows. We took away their grazing lands. Now the poor dears wander the village and stand near homes which offer them fruit peels and fallen mangoes.
Nothing is more fun than visiting the Friday market in Mapuca during these torrid months. Local fruit appear alongside (tasteless) Chinese pears and Israeli apples. Our Goan fruits are as delicious as the women selling them. Moira banana sellers regale with village stories and complain about the dwindling harvest. White pumpkin sellers offer similar tales. The pineapple vendors are as sweet as their super-sweet Goan pineapples.
God has blessed this land. Despite the heat, the humidity and our constant grumbling, the earth gives us her best during these months. Bon Appétit! (ENDS)
============================================ First published in Goa Today, Goa - May 2010
