THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tucked away in the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram, away from the bustle of the city, there lies a paradise in 2.5 acres. The orchard at Venjaramoodu, belonging to Ambili Uthaman, has 241 varieties of fruit trees from all over the globe and countless varieties of vegetables, root crops and ayurvedic plants.
Ambili’s orchard has several surprises in store for the visitor: There is the sweet kokum, with its edible flesh and skin which is used to make juice; the miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), which can make any subsequently eaten sour food taste sweet; the ice cream bean, a rare fruit which tastes like ice cream and several trees where the fruit grows on the stem.
It all started in 1995 when N Uthaman, Ambili’s husband, planted his first mangosteen sapling. It was the exotic taste of mangosteen that lured the family in, and the hunt for new varieties has now resulted in a vast collection of exotic, rare as well as indigenous fruit trees and myriad varieties of vegetables and ayurvedic plants. A homoeo doctor by profession and one harbouring a love for nature, Uthaman eschewed going in for plantation crops on their land. It didn’t take long for Ambili to take over and now the plot is dotted with exotic fruit trees, transforming the land into a natural wonderland.
Fruit trees from Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Indonesia, Africa, Vietnam, Brazil and India can be found here. They include the rare mangifera pajang, the mango variety from Brazil, named in the red list. The orchard has different varieties of cherry, jackfruit, mangosteen, mango, rambutan, durian, litchi, lemon, sapotta, pomegranate and pineapple. It also boasts rare fruits like chamarang (Lepisanthes fruticosa), abiu (Pouteria caimito), marian plum mango, borojo (Alibertia patinoi), Rollinia deliciosa, black sapota and mamey sapote.
For Ambili, not a day passes without a tete-a-tete with her trees. Her routine starts at the crack of dawn, watering and talking to the plants. She holds that water and fertile soil aren’t enough. “I talk to them everyday and get depressed if I can’t see them even for one day. Every tree has a story,” says 51-year-old Ambili for whom they are no less than her children. You can sweet-talk the plants into growing better, she says. She has many a story to tell on how she coaxed stubborn trees to flower simply by talking to them. She keeps a record of the plants and knows the exact age of each one in her orchard.
Ambili says her sons Maneesh and Anish never return empty handed after a journey. “They scour even the smallest nurseries and farms in search of new varieties. They always manage to get something new,” says Ambili. Anish works in Technopark and Maneesh owns a biometrical company in Venjaramoodu.
Their latest acquisition is kepel (Stelechocarpus burahol), a fruit from central Java. “It is considered to be one of the most aromatic fruits, and is treated like private property by the royal family in Indonesia. It can even change the body odour of a person, it is said,” says Anish. Kepel’s price ranges between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1 lakh a sapling.