Blessed to be born in a small town of Uttara Kannada District of Karnataka – the blessed land where Marikamba Devi resides, SIRSI. Waking up with the alarm of the singing birds, freshness of the forest as u walk by the day, warmest hearted people to wish the day happy, fantastic konkan cusine to gulp by before rushing to play…. Beautiful happy days…
Summer comes and joy is to go to mama’s (uncle) farm. Through the way picking up birinda (kokum), juicy tangy sweet fruit. Mama’s farm has a stream flowing, tall trees, paddy, arecunut, pepper… amazing… making hats from the arecunut leaf, making slippers too using the dry leaves, collecting all possible seeds and fruits … awesome days…
Listining to Mama’s stories of the tigers visiting the farm, and looking at the huge gate of the house closing by evening, as early as the sun goes down. He said tigers come by and we went to sleep imagining the same and waking up in between sweet dreams afraid of the tiger.
As we come by home, Grandma made the kokum fruit concentrate. She slit open the fruit, kept it on a large flat strainer with a vessel below, sprinkled a little crystal sugar and let it dry in the sun.
The amazing fruit concentrate, so made was a magic drink, tangy, sweet and loved the after effect of it on the tounge. My all time favourite energy drink. Mom also does the same method of fruit concentrate. this method, retains all the amazing nutrients and the shelf life is more than an year, without any chemicals added. Magic was in my grandma’s hands and my aayee’s too.
