After the floods in Kerala, plants, especially unwanted ones, are growing with a vengeance due to the standing water, creating new challenges for the beleaguered locals. In my home, a passion fruit plant (not unwanted) that was routed to a net on the terrace has intertwined with a kovekka (ivy gourd) vine, which grew on its own and was posing a problem of plenty due its furious growth—making the terrace look like a dark rainforest.
Both were heavily laden with fruit, but gathering them was difficult. With the influx of poisonous snakes along with the water, one is careful now for fear of inadvertent encounters with the fanged visitors. Though the snakes thankfully seem to have gone away, fear still lingers: Are they cooling off in the arboreal vines, barely distinguishable due to the similarity in shape?
The temptation to gather the fruit and veggie is so great that sometimes I throw caution to the winds and enter into the thick foliage after taking due precautions and do a quick job of it. Passion fruit squash is a weakness of many including myself; it is my all-time favourite refreshing drink after coming in from the hot sun. So I try to gather as much fruit as possible which thankfully falls to the ground when ripe. The kovekkas invite you tantalisingly from beneath the leaves, beckoning you with garlands of the small oval fruit. Some are plucked and passed on to friends, after I make sure to let them know that my life was risked for it! The yellow tangy passion fruits are also distributed thus.
The kovekkas have to be plucked before they mature to make tasty dishes, but half the fruits are left on the plant as reaching the interiors is risky. Most are left to ripen to a crimson red and attract small birds, squirrels and bats. One day as I opened the door to our inner courtyard, I saw a few vines of the kovekka plant coming down from the terrace as if reaching out to me, all laden with fruit. Astounded by the way nature made the inaccessible accessible, I plucked them with joy. When I went upstairs I could see that the vines on the periphery were flowering like nobody’s business and also laden with fruit.
It was a new realisation for me: If nature’s (legitimate) bounties are beyond one’s reach, it is brought to your convenience. No wonder fruits fall down when ripe. We have a lot to learn from nature’s selfless desire to give the best she has, without expecting anything in return. But man always tries to snatch it from her, often leaving her bruised. Interaction with nature can not only be invigorating but ennobling as well.
Elizabeth Koshy
Email: kitty.koshy@gmail.com