My lockdown mate of these months, this bitter gourd vine, is no more on the common fence. One morning, a few weeks ago, as I opened the door I was faced with a clean wall with stray brown dried remains loosely hanging from nails on their wall.
I was at a loss of words, an unknown heartache settled somewhere within me. I never imagined it to be gone, gone one morning the same way it came, one morning in the beginning of the year. I started following it closely after the pandemic confined our lives within the home in a global lockdown.
In these few months my daily outing was going up to the fence to check on the vine. I stood as a witness to its littlest stages of growth. I saw the buds come, flowers bloom. The males came first, the females with bulbs under their stalks came later. I read widely about growing bitter gourds to understand them better.
Once the insects came, the melons gradually arrived. They were borne out of the female flowers as cute little dark green bitter gourds. As they grew bigger in size, lighter in shade, the yellow dried flower remain attached to its tailend until they were harvested by my neighbour. One day, I met the neighbour who sowed the seeds on his side of the fence. We talked at length about good and bad seeds, buying them, his next crop.
I went beserk clicking the vine on sunny days, rainy days, those days when the rain drops stayed on them. With it growing wild on the fence the magpie robin couple made it their cosy nook. I sneaked behind the pillar to watch them chitter chatter When I found that the vine bore fruits at heights where the neighbour could not know or reach from his side of the wall, I called him. I felt like one of the neighbours from Mending Wall meeting to build that fence in Frost's land.
There were also days when the fully grown fruits turned ripe remained hidden on the fence. Both of us found them late. They shriveled yellow brown in the weather until their souls were pushed out to find their way to the other world.
My dislike of the bitterness the gourd brings to any dish is well known within the family. However, this vine made dents in my that attitude. I began to take second servings of my mother's thoran (a vegetable dry side dish in Kerala cuisine cooked with coarsely ground coconut & spcies) & khichadi, and my father's pickles to their joy without a fuss. I began cooking with it following recipes I had found online. We bought more of them from the market to cook with more often. My parents have never been happier. They loved it that I started loving one of their favourite vegetables.
I'm still in a state of shock when I see an empty fence that was until days ago a shade card of green, buzzing with life. I am surprised at my reaction to its sudden absence. I realize it was a dear friend who kept me sane these months of the lockdown.
Alas!
Trees of Cochin