Besides the crispy ghee roast from a nearby restaurant and the knick-knack stores on the premises, a big attraction for us children visiting the Guruvayur Sree Krishna Temple was an uruli filled with glossy, crimson-red ‘manjadikuru’, aka red lucky seeds.
The seeds would be small, oval to lens-shaped, like plump, double-convex discs, rounded on both sides. Their hard, smooth and shiny seed coat looked almost polished, resembling tiny glass beads or gemstones.
We would put a few coins in it and scoop up the seeds three times. Watching the tiny red beads roll through our fingers was one of our favourite activities.
Amma would explain to say it was a way of indulging the mischievousness of the child deity, and the mischievous child within us.
Since Guruvayurappan is worshipped as Bala Krishna, it is believed that he loves playing with these small, rolling seeds. Scooping them up and letting them cascade back into the uruli was, in a way, our own little game with him.
The ritual is also believed to ward off negative energy and the evil eye, with manjadikuru traditionally associated with protection, good fortune and wellness.
This Onam, the manjadikuru, which was once widely used in the pallanguzhi board game, made a brilliant comeback. It found new interpretations in fashion as well. Perhaps costumes and jewellery featuring the beads were the ‘variety items’ of the season.
But behind the beads and their new avatars is a tree that has been quietly producing them for generations. Let’s get to the basics.
The red bead tree, or manjadi maram, also known as coralwood or red sandalwood, is the keeper of those shining scarlet seeds.
Scientifically known as Adenanthera pavonina, and called Kuchandana or Tamraka in Sanskrit, the tree has found its way into our lives in more ways than one.
“It can grow anywhere. But it needs a good amount of space, and that is why people do not usually plant it at home,” says E S Santhosh Kumar, botanist with the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute.
The species is native to tropical Asia and northern Australia and grows primarily in wet tropical conditions. In Kerala, it has become familiar around homesteads, temple compounds and sacred groves, although it is not a dominant tree in the state’s natural forests.
“Its ecological uses are varied, with the tree serving as a source of food for animals and invertebrates and having uses as medicine, fuel and food,” adds Santhosh.
“Its life cycle has its own little spectacle. Green pods turn brown as they mature, then twist open to reveal rows of scarlet seeds against their pale inner surface. Some remain attached to the opened pod, making the fruiting tree almost as striking as the carpet of red beads that gather beneath it.”
For generations, a manjadi tree could turn an ordinary patch of ground into a child’s treasure trove. The seeds were collected, counted, guarded, traded and carried around in pockets and pencil boxes, and kept in old tins at home.
Their beauty, durability and remarkably uniform weight also gave them uses beyond play; traditionally, they were used as a unit of weight, including for weighing precious objects such as gold.
The story may not be as familiar to today’s children, and manjadi trees may no longer be as common a sight as they once were. Yet place a handful of those scarlet seeds before them, and little hands still reach out to pick them up.
“The tree is native to Asia. It has naturalised here. It was quite common to see this in our urban spaces,” says ecologist Anita Santhi.
She sees the species in the context of ecological restoration, particularly as Kerala loses natural spaces to degradation and changing land use.
“One thing you can see is that this tree comes up in degraded land,” she notes. “Its nitrogen-fixing ability can enrich the soil and help create conditions for other plants and trees to establish. In the long term, we have to bring back or restore the land using species like red lucky seeds.”
While the tree offers one kind of comeback in degraded landscapes, the little red seed is finding another in the world of craft and fashion.
Its naturally vivid colour and hard, shiny surface make the seeds ideal for necklaces, bracelets, saree tassels, wall art, furniture and other decorative pieces.
An alternative to plastic beads, they bring with them something no synthetic material can quite replicate — a little piece of memory.
Arish John Andrews, who runs the Instagram page Atmashray and creates handmade craft ornaments, began experimenting with manjadikuru a few years ago. The seeds he used were ones he had collected during his college days. His first piece was a pendant made for his sister.
“When I started, there was almost no one doing this. I had never seen this anywhere else,” he says.
The response was immediate, with enquiries and orders pouring in. Today, more makers are experimenting with the seeds. Arish calls it a good sign.
His collection includes pendants, chilanka, neckpieces, earrings and pins. He has even had a bride use only manjadikuru elements for her engagement. And despite the growing demand, he says he has never faced a shortage of the seeds, buying them in bulk at around `1,000–1,200 a kilo.
Working with the seeds, however, is not as effortless as their polished appearance suggests.
Sreelakshmi Ranjith, who runs handmade jewellery brand Nihaara by Laxmi, says nearly half the seeds in a batch may sometimes be unusable.
“When we buy it, we wash it first and then dry it in the sun. That is how we identify the spoiled ones,” she explains.
“It may not be good for the finished item. Some manjadikuru also have colour differences, perhaps because they are old, so it is a careful process.”
This Onam season, Sreelakshmi says, the demand was striking: around 95 of every 100 orders were for manjadikuru ornaments, including orders from outside India. “The queries have not stopped,” she adds.
Once the seeds become ornaments, they need a little care. Dust, water and sweat can affect them, she says, which is why customers are advised not to treat them as everyday wear.
“They are better worn after makeup is done and stored after gently wiping them with a soft cotton cloth,” says Sreelakshmi.
Each piece can take two to three days to make. Yet for many customers, the attraction is not merely the colour or novelty. The long-standing association of manjadikuru with good fortune and positivity has become part of its appeal, alongside nostalgia.
And perhaps, in an age of things made to be replaced, that nostalgia is the hardest thing to manufacture. What people are reaching for now may be more than an ornament. It is a small, tangible piece of a world they remember.