In that old-fashioned Atu house in Pipili there was a kanchana tree on the edges of our garden.
The walls of the house were made of plastered burnt bricks, the roof of chanchri or bamboo mats. The floor was cemented and bumpy, like the mottled hands of Lakhi, a prematurely aged woman who came to help ma with housework. Her younger daughter China, then around 10, was my only playmate. Lakhi apa would clean the floor and wash utensils, but ma’s liberalism would not extend to letting Lakhi fetch water from the tubewell or grind masala in the sil-batta .
The kitchen with its earthen chulah was a small annexe to the verandah. Ours was a rented house and had two and half rooms. A nest that was not quite a home; what we Odias call a basa , a habitation. The rent was ₹90 when we left in 1987. The garden at the back was huge, almost half an acre.
Garden’s bounty
The first wedding I remember took place in the local church; the bride’s wedding gown was the colour of kanchana flowers, a white that was neither bright nor dirty, but a colour that in Odia is denoted by the flower itself: kanchana ranga. The kanchana tree was on the border between the two gardens. There was also a pear tree that stood next to it, its fruits the size of small apples and with a pinkish core that ma periodically converted into the most delicious ‘pijuli jelly’.
But for me, the star attraction of the garden was the kanchana. Not that it had much competition. The garden was more a backyard. It had a few straggling hibiscus plants, a kalami mango tree, a yellow oleander tree, and not much other vegetation except the grass that had been allowed to grow tall and wild. There was a chicken coop with a rooster, some hens and intermittent broods of chicks; and a cattle shed with two cows and their calves. The cows didn’t give much milk; just enough to help us avoid buying dal regularly.
Parboiled or usuna rice with milk and potato chutney was standard lunch for us kids on many winter days. Dinner was often khichdi with ghee, curd and mango pickle.
Seasonal specials
But the end of the monsoon and the onset of Pujas had an added attraction: dishes made of kanchana flowers. That one tree was enough to provide an almost endless supply of flowers during the season for ma’s kitchen.
Ma turned milk into curd, cream into ghee, whey into chhena (not the standard cottage cheese, but a very different rubbery substance called dahi chhena that you get by curdling buttermilk after the butter has been removed), mangoes into pickle, and flowers (kanchana, of course, in late monsoons and autumn, but also flowers of the pumpkin vine on the kitchen roof) into fritters, bhajas and curries of many different kinds that added variety to our diet.
The hens and chicks marauding the backyard and scratching everything in sight, the cows grazing on the grass, my father’s busy schedule, ma’s disinclination to work on the land, all conspired to prevent us from having a vegetable garden. Milk, curd, ghee and flowers usually substituted for vegetables, apart from a few straggling specimens bought in the local market. Baba’s low salary and his inability to take bribes meant that ma had to be inventive for her three kids to be well-fed.
Although I loved the dishes she made with kanchana flowers, I remember the tree vividly for another reason altogether. My two younger sisters, inseparable even as toddlers, had taken over our small basa , and would not allow me to play in their group of two.
And being unsocial, I did not have any friends except China. I learnt reading before I could write. My father supported my indulgence at the cost of his own (cigarettes, the occasional bottle of cheap whisky, or the stray Hindi pulp fiction tome by Rajkamal Prakashan). When the weather was right, I would often escape the house, sit under the kanchana tree, and read. For a child who had no school, no friends, and no other amusements, that kanchana tree was as close to a friend that I ever had in those three years we stayed in that house in Pipili.
SUNDAY RECIPE
Kanchana flower chatak (serves four)
A chatak is neither a curry nor a chutney nor for that matter a khata. It is a savoury that is useful to whet the appetite when one is down with a cold or fever.
Ingredients
Five dozen kanchana flowers, 12 small arbis, 10 black peppercorns, 6 piplis (long pepper), 2” piece of ginger sliced, half tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 5 tsp poppy seeds, 2 pcs cinnamon, 8 tbsp grated coconut, 3 tbsp desi ghee, 1 tsp crushed jaggery, 2 sprigs of curry leaves, salt.
Method
1. Remove the stalks, stamens and pistils from the flowers. Wash well with lukewarm water. Wash and peel the arbis, cut into quarters. Wash the curry leaves. Grind pepper, pipli, ginger, poppy seeds and cinnamon into a thick, fine paste with very little water.
3. In a wok, add two tbsp ghee. When it is smoking hot, add the jaggery. When the jaggery starts to melt, lower the flame, add mustard, cumin, and curry leaves. After the cumin starts to brown, add the arbis and kanchana flowers. Add salt. Stir on a low flame for 7-8 minutes. Add the masala paste and stir.
4. After the masala cooks well with the flowers and arbis, add some ghee and sauté for 5 minutes, sprinkling water occasionally to prevent the masala from sticking to the bottom.
5. Add two small cups of boiling water to the wok.
Simmer on low flame for 2 minutes, add grated coconut, and cover the wok. Cook on a low flame for 5 minutes.
With a spoon press the arbis; if these are a little firm, yet can be mashed, the dish is done.
The writer is an author and researcher based in Bhubaneswar.
