A sense of Spring

Breathe in the fragrance of a new season,
drink in the vibrant colours of a new year (you really don't think January marks a new year, do you? ),
gorge on the flavours of the new fruits weighing down the trees,
smile at the crescendo of joyous bird-calls overhead and faraway and round-about  ... Spring is here and makes sure you know it by a mad, merry, exuberant sensory overload!

When else would you find such a serendipitous juxtaposition of a Blue butterfly sunning itself next to a Rosy Periwinkle?

Or gangs of ants quilting a heliconia bloom? Or could they be the heliconia artists, gently nipping a blush into every bloom? 

Nothing gentle about this exuberant bougainvillea screaming its presence! Rambunctious climber, irrepressible bloom-smith, unfussy tenant .. who doesn't appreciate the bountiful blooms of the bougainvillea when sunny, roasting hot days drag by? 

Sprays of Petrea wrap my garden in a soothing cloud of lavenders and purples fading into silvery grey. Twirling ballerinas of the botanical realm, each bloom matures into a role rarely essayed. How many flowers, after all, can spin and dance on the Spring breeze?  

And sometimes the heavens come down to earth! And high-flying Pariah Kites grant their royal stamp of approval to my humble bird-bath. Spring today, Summer tomorrow; a bird's got to sip and dip. In the meantime, they have an awestruck pair of eyes (and camera lens) following their every regal move!   

High up on the denuded teak trees, the very voluble parakeets screech and gossip about every passerby and every new tree in fruit. They love hanging around my garden now. No one will disturb their babies here and there are plenty of tender cashewnuts on the trees to gnaw on.

Tender cashewnuts, did I say? Oh so young to imagine the trial by fire awaiting it, to prove itself and be crowned king of the palate! Hundreds of bunches of these very quirky fruits are growing now, kissed by the Spring sunshine, dreaming of the day when the cashew-apples will be full-grown and all filled out. No celebrations for a Size Zero here!

Until then these Star Gooseberries are rocking the show in my garden. Clusters and clusters of them crowding the trees until the branches bend down, almost begging to be picked. 

The child in me loves the slight sourness in every pop of these. Have you found the child in you drooling over this too? 

Or, over this? The Carambolas are growing too. These star-shaped fruit are such an attractive sight, on the tree or the table. Or on the hawkers' carts. Did they use to sell the Carambola, dipped in salt and red-hot chilli powder, outside your school too? Does your mouth begin to water when you see this photo, as mine is beginning to?

Spring. And the Winter vegetables are still yielding.
Fresh crisp green cabbages growing among a forest of iron-rich red amaranths. Just as colourful as it looks and a hundred times more flavour-packed.
Did you know that ever since I grew the cabbages among the red amaranths, I've had less trouble with the foliage vandals? All the grasshoppers seem to be drawn to the red amaranths, leaving the cabbage alone.

On the roads, the Rain Trees are dotted with flowers. 

In my home, a few brave (and fool-hardy) centipedes try to barge in and are summarily tossed out on their ear!
But I do sneak an admiring glance at those mango-yellow boots. This gal has style!

And why am I repeating a pic of this Blue? Just because. 

Because it's so pretty and has a cute up-turned nose and big, big eyes.

Because it has a model's poise; look at the bend of that knee.

Because it knows where to hang out ... in my garden.

Because I like this photo.

And because it's Spring!

And because Spring means that all kinds of pretty fragrant flowers like this Vallaris are making the air heady with their scent. 

sigh .... did I mention that I absolutely love Spring? 

Summer snapshots : cashew like it

My cashew trees are now adorned with hundreds of golden fruit and their quirky (but oh so tasty!) nuts dangling outside the fruit.

I'm not too fond of the fruit (or cashew-apples as they're called). It leaves an unpleasant aftertaste and stains like crazy. Some people prefer to eat it with salt but I think the Goans seem to have found the perfect use for it... they make a heady liquor called 'feni' with it.

The nuts of the ripe cashew-apples are sun-dried and stored to be roasted later. But as for the tender green ones... who knows, they may just end up as the parrots' breakfast.
Bon appetit!

Cashewnut Days

In my garden, the cashew trees are bustling with activity. There are buds to bloom, bees to invite, fruit to grow ...
Ol' ma'am Cashew is one busy tree !


It all begins in the lazy, wet monsoon days in June - July. Ol' ma'am Cashew stretches her limbs and relaxes. (Look carefully at this photo... can you see her 'face'? ) This is the first time in months that she's really free to do so, after all. So she tries on some new mossy clothes, rearranges her hair, drinks more than she should, maybe, and just ... vegetates !


Then comes the early December mornings with the first hint of chill in distant lands and Ol' ma'am Cashew steps out of her spa.
"Look at me ! I feel so fresh, " she seems to preen. And it's true, she and her sisters are sporting new leaves and buds.


With the masses of tiny flowers opening up, the Cashews become the most sought-after trees in my garden. Bees, butterflies, ants , they're all over the Cashew trees.

They're the oldest trees in my garden and I have no idea who planted them here. Most probably, they were self-propagated. I'm told that the Portuguese traders brought these trees from Brazil way back in the 16th century and planted them along the coast to prevent soil erosion. Cashew trees are perfectly okay with a bit of roughing it out and ran wild all along the coast. So my trees are probably the offspring of these Brazilians-turned-Mumbaikars !

The Cashew tree's ample girth is one of her most attractive features. Earth mother-like, she spreads her branches to cover as much area as possible. Just one of my cashew trees is almost as big as a tennis-court ! Short, squat and expansive she may be, but all the migratory birds flock to her as if they can sense her comforting shelter.

As for me, I love sitting in her shade on the blazing-hot, sunny Indian summer days. More often than not, I find myself running out bare-foot, following a pretty bird or butterfly, only to realise too late that while they can fly, I can not and the ground beneath my feet is like one huge bed of burning coals. I sprint to the blessed shade of the Cashew tree and have to call out to someone to rescue me with some footwear. And if there's no one around, I'll just have to take the long way around, following the shade of one tree to the next.


The flowers give way to tiny little fruits called cashew apple ( I haven't the faintest idea why ... it doesnt look, smell or even remotely taste like apples! ) and nuts which strangely grow outside the fruits. Did Ma Nature make a freakish mistake here? I can't think of any other fruit which has this odd arrangement.

Just as odd, perhaps, is the fact that the nut develops first before the fruit starts to fill out. At first, the nut and fruit, both have this liver-red colour. At this stage, the nut is just a hollow promise... there is no tasty kernel inside.


The next stage is the 'greening' of the nut where the kernel forms inside. At this stage (slightly bigger than that in the photo above), the tender nut is often harvested and sliced up. The pale white kernel is cooked into one of the most delicious dishes of coastal India. It's murder on the hands because the shell oil leaves a waxy coat that stains the hands for days and then starts peeling off in ugly strips. But oh, the taste ... ! It's the stuff that sweet memories , if not legends, are made of.

This stage also sees hordes of flying robbers invading my garden ! Flocks of parrots descend on my Cashew trees at all hours of the day, fighting over the delicious kernels. In the morning when I step out, I find chewed open shells and carelessly discarded cashew fruit carpeting the ground under each cashew tree. Very annoying when I consider that those nuts were to be eaten by my family and friends but the parrots are so entertaining that I really dont mind all that much. After all, there is more than enough for all of us.

This is the stage that my Cashew trees are at now. Soon, in a month or so, the trees will fill up with the big fruits. My trees are all of the yellow-fruit kind but some of my neighbours have the red-fruit cashews which look much prettier. But both varieties look fantastic when loaded with fruit... like a summer-time Christmas tree loaded with decorative yellow ornaments!