Spring is in the air, the cashew fruit is ripening on trees, and war clouds have already gathered.
The fighting is an annual village ritual.
Blame it on the cashew tree, which must be the most untidy tree in the world, sprawling all over the place so that very often though the tree itself may be on one person's property, the branches dangle the cashews over someone else's land.
The fiercest warrior in this war, at least in my neighborhood, is a toothless old woman with bow legs who owns much land and most of the cashew trees.
Five and six times a day she'll appear, waddling among the trees, with a long stick attached to a hook to pull down as much of the ripe fruit as she can before the looters swing into action. Very often she's too late. When she arrives the ground is already littered with the discarded fruit, the looters having seized the precious cashew nut and run off. Many times she catches them red-handed – men, women and children – and then a war of words breaks out.
My cashews, the old woman screeches. Mine!
My property, the other shouts in turn. Mine!
Get off my cashews!
Get off my property!
The children run when they see her because she's a cranky old lady, at her crankiest during the cashew season.
The monkeys don't care. They'll sit high on the trees and eat the fruit while she shakes her fist at them. Unlike most of my neighbors, she doesn't throw away the fruit when she gathers the nut because the fruit is used to make kaju feni and urak. All over Goa at this time of year people are gathering the fruit and the nut, because cashew trees grow wild. They're everywhere.
When all the cashews have fallen from the trees and you think peace will descend at last, a different kind of war breaks out.
Drunk on cashew feni, which is prepared by many at home, men totter in the middle of the road, in the hot sun, and shout drunkenly at each other.
And cityfolk who go quietly to a dry fruit shop and pay good money for cashew nuts know nothing of the drama that goes on behind the scenes.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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3 comments:
Have you tried squeezing the ripe kaju fruit and drinking its juice- it is extremely sweet and the labor uses it for their drink break- the strange thing is Maharashtra does not allow the kaju fruit to be made into feni- it is illegal and the villagers do not want any trouble- so most of the kaju fruit is wasted which is quite sad- so much of potential booz- rotting-
You rarely get the kaju fruit intact because monkeys, crows and other birds peck at them, wasting, of course, most of the fruit. But i don't much like the taste anyway. As to not being allowed to make feni in Maharastra, that's really absurd. Or maybe not. Remember, all the political bigwigs own vineyards. Last thing they'll want is competition. But is there so much kaju in Maharashtra? I don't recall ever seeing a tree.
the konkan area is very big and a lot of it comes under Maharashtra- districts Ratnagiri/ sindhudurg etc- Goa is only an extension of the konkan area
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