Edible Shoots

Because you really are one ... berry much so. Not from a punnet I dumped into my shopping trolley while strolling through the freezer aisle of the supermarket, but handpicked from a planter whose bushy growth I had watered to fruition at our doorstep. I bought her almost five years ago at the Thursday market from a farmer who was about to pack up for the day. Obviously the strawberry plant in question was among the few unsold ones, abandoned by earlier strawberry lovers after favoring her healthier sisters. She survived five Abha winters and withstood neglect during the few weeks I went mad grading papers without being able to nurse her. Almost zero care. Maybe my farm guru, Damoderettan, was correct when he said: “Lending your pair of eyes to your plants is the best fertilizer". Interestingly, three things conspired to produce this post. First, the Hijri New Year; second, the word ‘locavore’ as a new addition to my personal vocabulary; and third, a rather compulsive ...

The above is an actual wish someone expressed, using the common dandelion (Taraxcum officinale) as a vehicle for their seemingly silly wish. What lies behind that wish is the perception that dandelion is an invasive weed. The vigorous sprouting of wishes in our heart has been likened to the abundant growth and carefree propagation of weeds. Unsurprisingly, the dandelion (in the above-mentioned person’s mind) fits the bill perfectly, so they effortlessly linked together dandelions and the proliferation of human wishes. The dandelion, named after its dentate leaves that resemble the teeth of a lion, was so called by the French: “dent de lion”. It didn’t take long for the name to morph to “dandelion”. This picture was taken on the Graiger campus of King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia, where I work for a living teaching English. The photo may leave the impression that dandelions are bee-pollinated. That is not true. The dandelion bears perfect flowers. It is bisexual ...

      If there is a deeper meaning behind everything we do in life, what would be behind the practice of pickling excess seasonal produce?  We love hoarding stuff. We wish we could keep things forever. We assume that the things we save today will save us tomorrow. No matter what the common experience, we tend to overlook anything to the contrary. We believe in what we love. I don’t know what anthropologists will have to say about this, but I strongly hold the view that pickling culture has something in common with nature. Our ancestors, from the dawn of civilization, began hoarding things for a rainy day. They wanted to store things, not only for putting them to better use later, but also for keeping them from rotting. An excellent tradition. But at a deeper level, it also reflects their trust in tomorrows. In agrarian societies, seasonal plants fruit in huge quantities. Since the yield cannot be wholly consumed by the family, the fruits of their labor would ...

     “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” So said Archimedes once. I wish I could say, in the same vein: “Give me some wheat flour and a rolling pin, and I will move hearts.         Water, salt and little else besides - just mix everything until well combined. Knead the dough into the desirable consistency, and then turn it into lovely shapes and sizes before baking these into anything you can name. Just like clay in the hands of a skilled potter, you can give your creativity free reign and shape, size, flavor up and color the dough, baking it into something beyond anyone’s wildest culinary fancy. Our love affair with wheat is said to have started between 12,000 and 10,000 BCE. It was in the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian, Assyrian, and Egyptian farmers first began cultivating wheat. Obviously, the bread we now eat took millennia to develop into what it is today. The loaves our ancestors baked...

Today is my 38 th birth anniversary, to be more careful with the language as my resolution for the new year was to. I'm feeling overwhelmingly happy after an outpouring of good wishes that started yesterday already, one of the well-wishers being my beloved director at my erstwhile training college. I had never thought he cared that much about me.  I stayed up late last night talking to a terrific friend of mine. You know, I overslept as a result of that and missed my breakfast, yet I went to work with a heart filled to the brim.           I tend to lie awake cuddled up in my comforter before I really get up in the morning. There was a toddler crying in a nearby apartment. I can't stand kids' crying and was wondering why her parents were just letting her cry. Why couldn't they hug and kiss her to console her? As she continued, I imagined walking up to her and hugging her, kissing her on the head, calling my Aishumol to mind...

Recently, when I was talking to someone I did my M A with at Department of English, Calicut University Campus, all these came up to my mind. I was transported back to my university days. It was on a lazy after noon, I was  talking to one of my classmates. Now I am not quite sure what she was talking about. I only knew it was something a teacher had mentioned during the previous hour. I had skipped that particular session, though I wasn't in the habit of missing classes. I told her very casually: "Oh, I missed that period." "You missed WHAT? You missed a PERIOD?" she echoed dubiously, looking rather amused but not pursuing the matter. Nor did I care, as naivety was my second name back then. Maybe, even now at times for sure. One of the in-house English words I knew from the school I went to was "period". We would say "first period", "second period", "during  the PT period" etc. To me it simply meant a class session ...

     Happy memories can heal.Strangely, sometimes of a thing that can cause a bleeding wound.A word before I tell you what I wanted to. This photo was shot this evening as it caught my eyes in a traditional market, popularly known as Tuesday Market in Abha. It opens all days but for their big day is Thursday.The Arabic word for this decorative object is  Jambiya .The one in the frame is a wooden model displayed in front of a honey vendor.This stall sells honeycomb too, interestingly.       It did bring all the memories back again.You are less likely to forget that. Don’t worry though. I can take you for a walk.A lovely piece of accessory you gifted me the day before I left for Saudi Arabia. It was a beautiful keychain holding a small replica of a silver-colored-knife, the kind that traditional Arab tribesmen wear on their waist belt. I hadn't thought of it in years, nor could I even remember where I had left it when I was in a h...

It was Nasarka, a family friend of ours for years, who recommended the dish for the first time. He put it in such a way that I had the urge to try it out then and there ... which I did. My taste buds judged the result to have come out perfectly, which was very unusual for my personality type, as I typically take time to befriend and love someone new I meet. But this was definitely love at first sight. The dish thrilled the neuroreceptors in all of the six tongues in our little family. It has been a firm favorite in our household ever since; a delicacy of Anatolian descent, but a guest no more.     If you still wonder what hummus really is, I can’t put it any better than the American Heritage Dictionary, which describes it as "a smooth, thick mixture of mashed chickpeas, tahini, oil, lemon juice, and garlic, used especially as a dip for pita". Let me add that the preferred oil is olive oil, since the original and authentic recipe calls for it. If you guessed tha...

      This is a show to which your entry passes have already been issued in unknown but specific numbers, whether you believe in predestination or not. You have no choice but to enter. However, you are free to use an eye mask or a pair of earplugs. It is totally up to you. Some do use them, consciously or otherwise.       Ever since I grew old enough to wonder about the phenomenon  of dawn and dusk, it has set my imagination on fire. In winter, mostly  on Sunday mornings, I would prefer to stay in bed: warm, huddled up,  wrapped in blankets, wide awake. I was all ears - though we can’t move  our ear pinnae – attentive to the crowing of roosters in the chicken  coop, the cawing of crows flying by, other birds’ chirping, the mooing of  the cow in the shed with its calf tethered, the bicycle bells of the  newspaper boy, the stirrings of my younger siblings, and my mom’s  never-ending quarrel with damp f...

Almost all of my friends I went to school with are now far away from me. Some are gone forever. Others (who were never in my immediate circle) stay in touch, as do the ones I went fishing, swimming, biking, cashew-nut-gathering and foraging-for-wild-berries with. A chance meeting would make the latter group reconnect inseparably almost instantaneously - an instant anti-aging medication. Nothing seems to bond people as strongly as good times shared with one another. We went around wading through run-off rain water during the monsoon, and diagonally crossing the tilled paddy fields, trampling solid dry-as-dust lumps of soils into a single-file walking trail. Roads were dusty in the summer, and muddy during the monsoon. That was a time when our village was not fully free from open defecation. It reminds me of a line from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “The excrement dried in the sun, turned to dust, and was inhaled by everyone along with the joys of Christma...

Before I tell you what I am really setting out to write about, let me remind you: I don’t endorse the use of bottles and disposable cups for storing, transporting, or even for drinking from. It is one of the losing battles I waged against myself after resolving to abstain from using non-biodegradable disposables.It is one of my only failures. All I have managed to do so far is to minimize their usage. It is certainly better than nothing, and a step in the right direction. Photo Credit: Dr. Ajmal Around 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. That doesn’t mean you will never go thirsty regardless of where you go. Forget about the 97% which is saline; the remaining 3% fresh water is mostly not in potable form as 68% of it is stored in icecaps and glaciers. I wonder how Samuel Coleridge Taylor knew all these statistics as early as the Romantic period when he lamented in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink”.  It i...

Hi dears...hope you are enjoying the rest of the cake 🎂. The other day, I took Pearl S. Buck seriously and wanted to surprise my mom by milking the cow before she gets up. As I showed up in the dark, our cow was a bit surprised to see me in a different role. She looked very cool and unusually willing to get along anyway. But the udder felt shrunken and nothing came out to my disappointment. I soon realized that my mom had forgotten to tether the calf a bit away from its mother in the evening. And it so happens once in a blue moon.   To keep a short story short, obviously, it was a  great Christmas for the calf however. And he deserves it for letting us have a nice coffee the year round. In a short while before it is too late, a few of my neighbors turned up with little pots wondering why the supply was late. Mom pointed at the calf and I feigned knowing nothing. The cow and calf looked  indescribably happier as the day warmed up with sun rays. That Christmas ...