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After a glorious 7 years in V. Niwas, I shifted to Qrs C1-97 for my impending marriage (which remained pending for another 5 years). And then my wife joined me and all my gastronomical &c troubles came to a pleasing end.
That Qrs had a huge garden which was herculean for us to manage. Just outside our Hall window was this BEAUTIFUL 6' pomegranate tree that stayed 6 feet in height for all the 20 years we lived there.
Pomegranate tree is a POEM of Nature. Its stem, its leaves, its buds, its flowers, and its fruit are a paean like the 'Anarkali' Madhubala...a delicious feast for the eye.
But our pomegranate tree gave no ripe fruit...only buds, flowers, and babies which withered and fell to the ground. Perhaps it needed special manure which we never bothered to give it.
There were big red pomegranate fruit in the KGP market. Once my wife bought one and succeeded in cutting it. It laid bare its blood-red innards. And my wife gave me a few of them on a plate. Seeing their lovely looks I was tempted to gobble them. And found they were mostly seed which I had to spit out without chewing. There was no way the flimsy red flesh clinging to the seed could be peeled away. And the taste wasn't all that it promised. Pomegranate in the KGP market was an upstart. An impostor. A pretender. An enticer. A seducer.
As Portia said long ago:
All that glisters is not gold—
Often have you heard that told.
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled
Fare you well. Your suit is cold—
There was also this popular fallacy about pomegranate that it is good for anemia, and that consuming it in colossal quantities will improve your blood count and complexion of your face....all optical delusions of the gullible. Pomegranate, with all its poetic excesses, is a C-grade fruit (like that Madhubala of your teenage fantasies).
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Nearer the fence was also a lemon tree. Not so much of a tree but an overgrown bush. It was lovely. Occasionally I used to drag my chair and sit under it...it was roomy....never mind its spiky thorns. And its tender translucent leaves were a pleasure to look at...and pluck and crumble...they emitted a heady aroma.
That tree never gave us lemons for all of 18 years. And then suddenly it woke up and bore dozens of fruit everyday. It was fun to watch the green youngsters turn golden yellow. The fruit were full of juice...and seeds. And very sour as promised.
Many households in the South preferred lemon to tamarind for rasam, flavored rice, and even for cleaning vessels (lemon-fresh). Just for looks. Racists. But my wife was fanatical about tamarind.
Luckily by then Apartment Blocks came up in KGP and their residents didn't have gardens...and it was for us easy to palm off our lemons to discerning customers.
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Talking of lemons reminds me of Gudur where my father's family shifted to in 1965 and stayed till 2015.
In the 1970s when I used to visit Gudur, I found the markets overflowing with lemons. Heaps of lovely lemons all over the place. On street-walks. On carts. In baskets. And were sold dead cheap...one rupee fetched a couple of dozen mellow fruit. I was wondering how...since lemons in the KGP market were one a rupee.
I was told that the lands in the outskirts of Gudur were discovered to be ideal for growing superior quality lemons. In hectares by the thousand. Folks from Nellore and its numerous villages used to throng to the wholesale markets of Gudur and carry away cartloads to sell them at a huge profit.
But in 2000 when I looked for the lemon heaps in the Gudur market, I was disappointed. Only tiny shriveled chaps were present here and there. And rotten ones lying on the roads. And I asked why. And was told that the entire crop of Gudur lemons were exported all over the country and the world. For humongous profits. Farmers turned millionaires.
Globalization.
And I don't understand why farmers in the North are going on strike against it...
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It was when I was a lad of 10 that I first visited Gudur. I was then studying in our high school in Muthukur. And there was this 'Excursion'. By a 'diesel' bus!
We were first taken to the Glass & Ceramic Factory (now closed I believe). And I learned to my dismay that glass and ceramic are made from sand and clay!
I bought a cute porcelain tortoise as a memento for 8 annas. And Father used it as a paperweight.
Then we were driven to the outskirts. To the Shah Mine. Most famous then.
It was a mica-mine.
On the floor leading into the mine were sitting on either side hundreds of women, girls and kids. With baskets of stuff which they turned in minutes into shiny flakes of mica. Cleaning, peeling, cutting, sizing, with knives and scissors.. and grading.
The mine itself was frighteningly dark. Mining workers busy running to and fro with headloads of baskets. Wearing what were possibly Humphrey Davy headlamps.
When I went to IIT KGP in 1965, I was asked what my home town was famous for. And when I said Ruby Mica, the professor-in-charge of dielectrics lab embraced me and requested me to fetch as many ruby mica flakes as I can on my next trip. Which I did. Dozens. Free. Shining like mother-of-pearl.
I guess he guided many PhDs...they were great insulators useful in electrical and electronic devices.
A couple of decades later I was inquiring about the ruby mica at Gudur.
And I was told that all the mica mines got shut down...no longer economical.
And the women, girls, and kids shifted to lemon fields as cheap labor...and the men to toddy shops...
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To be continued
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