MANCHADI

This beautiful ‘ Suprabhatam ‘ message send by my friend takes me back to childhood. In school, the happiest moments were when the Maths teacher was on leave and a teacher on substitution came. As the boys dashed out to play foot ball, the girls took pleasure in playing the game of riddles. One day my friend baffled me with a tough riddle. “A drop of blood in a forest “, tell me what? I tried very hard but utterly failed to crack. As per our deal I owed her a Parry’s sweet, which happened to be the favourite of school children those days. She kept me in suspense till the next day when I gave her the sweet. With the smile of victory on her face, she gave me the answer, “Manchadi”. Manchadi are the seeds of Coral Tree, which resembles drop of blood.

The most exhilarating memories of child hood are linked with my stay at my ancestral home at Trivandrum during summer holidays. More than the excitement of being free from school home work and lavish pampering by grandparents, frequent visit to the zoo was the magnetic pull. Visiting the zoo with my favourite aunt, Zamrood aunty, a biology teacher and my cousin, Sunitha are the most cherished memories of childhood. Collecting the shining scarlet red Manchadi seeds lying scattered there was my coveted passion. I used to forget the scorching heat and weariness of trudging along the zoological garden when the sheer beauty of these seeds caught my attention. It is mainly because whenever I took them to school, I reigned as the queen amidst the Hindu friends. I proudly distributed it to them, because they said it was customary to keep Manchadi in an ‘Uruly’ (an ethnic cooking vessel in Kerala made of Bell metal) in Sree Krishna temples. During my childhood the gold smiths used it as a unit to weigh gold.

Manchadi Tree ( Adnanthera Pavonia), is almost extinct these days. A couple of weeks ago when I went to a restaurant in Ernakulam with my husband I was overwhelmed to see these tiny rubies lying scattered under a huge tree. My childhood instinct to pick them up made me jump with joy…. but what to do. I am no more the school girl of the past and as an adult, I miss the joys of childhood.