Making peace with Coconuts
Let me defend my reservations towards coconuts by stating upfront that it isn’t personal. It may just be the perils of excess or overfamiliarity with this fruit of the versatile kaplavruksha, coupled with my limitations in digesting it. Born into a fairly traditional Konkanasta family and married into a way more traditional one, my tryst with coconuts is an unending love-hate saga (latter more than former). My mother who was adept in the typical coastal cuisine but had to prepare coconut-free versions of dishes just for me, will vehemently vouch for it.
To be honest, I have a weakness for sea shore sunsets, and you cannot have a decent shore without its palms swaying gracefully with the westerlies. The first ever airplane landing that I remember vividly was as a school girl, when the erstwhile East West Airline aircraft broke through the cloud cover to a view of dense plantations of palm trees of Cochin. I was ten. A weeklong tour of Kerala along the southwestern shores endeared the sun, sand, sea, and the inseparable coconuts that came along with it.
God’s own country
For six years now I’m a resident of Sindhudurg, South Konkan Maharashtra, where coconuts are omnipresent. Every ceremony from birth to death is incomplete without them. My mother brought me a book on Malvani rituals when it was decided I would be married into a Malvani family, and guess what fruit adorns its cover!
Our elders never refrained from overemphasizing the benefits of coconuts – be it the water, the kernel, the oils, the potassium, the manganese , the medium chain triglycerides and so on. Even today, I can rant on about the benefits of every part of the resourceful coconut tree, while dictating its uses to my kid, who exasperatingly reminds me, “They’ve asked to enlist only five!”
In addition to the beautiful coir welcome mats, I adore the pots made of coir hanging in our garden that particularly favour the cascading ferns, the branches of which don’t mind growing right through the pots. A bagful of coco pith fertilizer is a permanent part of our gardening paraphernalia. Our kitchen also houses a fragment of the coconut husk used to grease oil onto our traditional cast iron pans.
Coir planter in our garden
Oil brush made of coconut husk
But my adoration ends here. Once the coconut wishes entry into my body through food or even scents, my brain recoils and protests against the assault. It is a deeply ingrained childhood reflex. I have been unable to digest coconut laced foods for as long as I can remember. And we don’t just lace our food with coconut but drown our food in it.
A busy medical practicing couple like ours seldom get to plan faraway trips, and we end up in any resort within a 50 km radius of our home. While we do have plenty of choices in beach side resorts, all of them invariably assume that coconut scented bath soaps and conditioners match best to their beach resort theme and I invariably end up nauseated.
Another thing that I had to learn is where to park my car. Every Konkani household boasts of “anganatle maad” (courtyard palms). Park your car long enough, and you’ll be lucky to exit the place without a dent in your car. With luck like mine, you may even encounter an eager coconut plummeting to embrace your vehicle as it is navigating the twists and turns of a typically tortuous Konkan road.
Coconuts pretty much dictate our way of life here on the coast. During an odontogenic cyst removal surgery that was being performed at our set up just last week, our endodontist likened the enucleation process to smooth removal of the tender coconut malai, pregnant with coconut water, as against debriding a tenacious chronic granuloma from its bony cavity which is similar to scraping of the thick copra of a fully ripened coconut. I was torn between admiration for the metaphor and a reflex eye roll at the mention of coconuts for the umpteenth time that day.
I write this on the eve of Narali Poornima (the Shravan full moon of the festival of Raksha Bandhan dedicated to, yes you guessed it right- coconuts!), trying my best to evade the topic of coconut desserts which will be expected the next day.
There seems to be no other way but to make peace with this nut.