Friday 3 July 2015

Meditation On A Drive


                                             



     It was those bunched up bright yellow pumpkin flowers that made me stop. Dipped in rice flour paste and deep fried , the ronga lau phulor bor were a delicacy that hadn't touched my taste buds for many years.   Rumu, whose cab we had hired for the journey from Goalpara to Guwahati, indulged and let me reinstate  my connection  with the land that never ceases to fill me with a warm feeling. The overcast sky threatening to pour down notwithstanding, the car came to a halt .

       This Deobariya Haat, the  Sunday market  somewhere between Boko and Soigaon took me back to another era when these were the only produce we would see. Available in accordance to the seasons, tasting right just then. A common utterance during meal times comes to mind reiterating the importance of seasonal fruits and vegetables,
Botoror pasoli  khabo lage…”
So we were told when the nose screwed up at the sight of gourds, gourd shoots, tender drumsticks, ripe jackfruits and all those vegetables and fruits that seemed unpalatable.  The produce of the land is ready to be consumed only at a particular time of the year because that is when it is full of virtues that benefit the body and yield best to those discerning sensors in the tongue. The colours, the sights and sounds of this little bazaar where the fresh seasonal produce of the nearby villages are brought, were a treasure of long forgotten fruits and vegetables. Where it was a part of monotonous lives in the smaller places, chancing on it was like an excitement of discovering  what was thought to be long lost.

          These little markets that spring up along the highway are the best places to source from.  Squatting in colourful mekhelas, the bright faces of the local Rabha and Garo women glisten and glow. The fresh ghost chillies that the world is raving about, tender ferns, cucumbers , banana flowers, bamboo shoots and gourd shoots, those fragrant kaji lemons… and that maddening aroma of pineapples. All organically grown. All arranged in little heaps, in groups and the larger ones kept in singles to be sold thus and not by the scales. You have not tasted pineapples unless you have walked past some of those from the Garo hills. Relishing them begins from the sweet aroma that they tantalise you with. A nick with the knife and a burst of juice trickles down. The best way to get them ready is to wash and remove the peel, core out the 'eyes', salt and wash them and then cut them into chunks over a plate or a bowl so you don’t waste the juice.

                                   


  Incidentally, this is a market where the vendors are women barring aside one or two. These Garo and Rabha women are said to be extremely hard working and enterprising , threw in Rumu as we continued our journey with our fresh vegetables in the boot of the car. He elaborated that these women are up at daybreak tackling the household chores, tending to the livestock, the vegetable patches and field. Whereas majority of the menfolk awaken just before the sun touches the zenith and nurse their homemade liquor through the day between spurts of work.

                                           


 You’ve done well to pick those vegetables here, baido, he continues. You will not regret. Whenever I've passengers on this route I always pick vegetables from here. They don’t spoil for many days unlike the ones picked from the town market. And they taste the best too. For the simple reason that they are not injected with chemicals to help them grow or ripen overnight. What were those bamboo hollows for, I ask. Are they to be filled with rice and slow cooked on embers? Oh those! Rumu explained that the women in these parts, stash a particular smaller variety of fish, caught in their jakois, into the bamboo hollows and leave it to ferment and dry on bamboo racks over the earthen stove at home. Once it is cured, this dried fish is then cooked in small amounts or made into chutneys. It is a popular delicacy and is also said to have medicinal  properties to prevent malaria in these densely foliaged parts of the countryside.


                                                   


      I looked out of the speeding car watching the distant landscape with the rolling hills and young green of the paddy fields  change it’s orientation while the nearby trees and roadside homes ensconced in the privacy of a verdant  buffer offered by the  tall jackfruit,amla, mango, areca trees, mausandas,  zipped past.  My mind went back to the little market again and again, triggering a thought here and there.

      The red bag I’d noticed in the market contained some white cotton roll like stuff. These are eri cocoons , the lady had offered.  Just then a customer had come, checking the cocoons, he tried bargaining but she was not to budge.  Weaving at homes had always been a part of daily life in Assam just as raising a vegetable patch, or cultivating a bamboo grove or fish in the pond backyard. Just enough to fulfill the daily needs of a household. Threads would be spun out of these cocoons on a wooden spinning wheel. These then would be mounted on a wooden loom resting under a thatched shed usually placed near the kitchen that allowed women of the household to alternate between their chores, cooking and weaving. Memories came tumbling down of my grandmother and my aunt in Tipling ; sitting at the loom combing in the warp and the weft; of sliding the shuttle between the threads; clicking the bamboo pedals with their feet in a neat orchestra . Basic mekhelas, gamusas and fabric emerged from these looms for the family then.

  The looms now feed the many boutiques and shops  in the towns and cities. A week back we had dropped by an NGO, Grameen Sahara, at Soigaon that was involved with many self sustaining programmes for the local people. Strengthening eri silk weaving was one of them. Right from developing a system of  providing cocoons and threads on credit, the NGO untiringly supports the local people to weave the eri fabric that has found a niche market in the western world. Their adherence to quality has earned them the stamp of approval of Silkmark.  For the uninitiated, eri is a tenacious warm silk fabric and it’s thread is derived from the Ailanthus silk worm. It is also known as ‘ahimsa’ silk since the cocoons are used after the moths leave them. You can be sure to find an eri shawl stashed in a trunk in every Assamese household that will be brought out with the first hint of a chill in the air. These have been handed down from generations, capturing and bequeathing the warmth of the ancestors in their threads, mostly woven by a grandmother or a great grand mother.

  As the car nears the outskirts of the Guwahati city, the idyllic landscape is dotted more frequently with concrete structures peeping over distant green canopies or jostling each other. The mind humours the little ideas that bubble up now and then. It is heartwarming to come across spaces that rekindles the bond with the roots. And it is heartening to see the social development efforts striving to provide a better life to the simple rural people by empowering them. Retaining the unique identity of an area while developing it to provide basic amenities and bringing prosperity to it's people without churning out concretised clones of cities and towns, is the challenge. It will be worthwhile to keep in mind that the sight of the pumpkin flowers and fresh pineapples in the roadside farmer's market with the paddy fields and the distant blue hills in the background will continue to charm the travellers in the now and forever.



      

17 comments:

  1. The post leaves me with a lingering aroma of fresh pineapples and the taste of deep fried Pumpkin flowers dipped in rice flour paste, a dish that my grandmother would prepare and I devoured in my childhood. Thanks for sharing Ilakshee:-)

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  2. Amen to that! I would hate to enshroud this whole lovely country in concrete - but then I would also hate to come in the way of development. If the latter can be managed without the former, then that is lovely.

    Your piece is evocative and makes the taste buds yearn for the flavors that today's vegetables or fruits - in the cities at least - seem to have lost

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  3. Nice to see some women-power in a local market. :)
    The fruits directly from the growers really are the best, aren't they? Nice to learn about the drying of fish and that weaving silk at home is an everyday activity.

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  4. Well observed, and so well written. It felt like being there. Hope to read more...More pics pls :)

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  5. A beautiful description Ilakshee.. I would definitely love to have an Eri shawl as its kind to the animals.Its great to know about this culture of having a fish pond, a bamboo groove, a veggie patch and the daily weave !!

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  6. Somali, certain trips take us down nostalgia lanes. I am so glad my drive took you to your childhood. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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  7. Suresh, development, as we agree, should be to empower and for uplift of people and not rampant concretisation. As for the vegetables in the cities, they are pathetic.

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  8. Deepa, those veggies fresh from the fields are always the best.Rural people in all their wisdom have their own ways of finding remedies.

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  9. Unknown, It would have been great to know your name and interact. Thank you for appreciating.

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  10. That is an immersive post; I found it hard to leave the market thanks to your endearing account and images. Those pure and simple ways eventually will give way to the supermarkets no matter how deeply we resent it.

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  11. Thank you Smita :) and welcome here!

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  12. Uma, I am flattered that my post had that kind of an effect. Sadly, cloning of urban spaces seem to be the benchmark for 'development' regardless of suitability.

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  13. First, huge respect to those ladies. I wonder, why they need men?

    I wish I could visit there. The thing about relishing a food at specific time of the year is so true. We have many Himachali delicacies which we eat season-wise.

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  14. Saru, would love to try those seasonal delicacies in a Himachali home..

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  15. Beautiful pictures. Women selling fruits and vegetables in the market is a common scene in North East India. This part of India has socio-cultural similarities with many of the South East Asian countries. Specially the food habit. The larvae inside the eri cocoons are treated as a delicacy by many tribes in this area. The eri larvae is sold as food in markets in Dhemaji (Assam) also at .Rs. 300 to 400 per Kg.

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  16. Yes Dipak, I agree and these markets are a welcome sight. For that matter a local market of any place is a reflection of it's people and their food culture.

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Your words keep me going :)