“If we could just pack a few things and go…”. But a trip to India takes planning, preparation, time. And there simply was not enough time for India after we tentatively plugged it into our schedule: we needed time for rest, then days to be spent with family and close friends etc. The winter break was not terribly long anyways and, after all, you can’t just go to India for 10 days! So we gave up on the idea.
But India had not given up on us! Nearing the end of our winter retreat, weeks after we had stopped talking about it, a friend called: a last minute change of plans for non-refundable mileage tickets: would we go? To India? For free? Next morning, January 8, we were bound to Kolkatta!
Our trip was not at all what I expected it to be because the next 10 days or so would be fully packed with more plane rides to different cities, as well as endless hours of car rides for meetings with farmers and herb vendors all over South India. No Bharat Natyam dance concert in Chennai, no festive Pongal celebrations in Coimbatore, no ayurvedic treatments in the world capital of Ayurveda in Kerala…. Instead, an apprenticeship in seesing, smelling, touching, feeling exotic herbs and spices for the first time… Here are some highlights of this short but beautiful trip.
Amrita:
Hearing Vaidya speak of Guduchi or Amrita, for many many years now, I know the herb well. About how “magical” it is, so fully charged with prana that you could just clip a part of it and hang it from your ceiling without water or soil and it would grow shoots in no time!
I’ve had guduchi powder in my tea and am familiar with its bitter taste. But it was something else to actually take a small piece of it with you, and keep it in your purse, without water or soil, and see how day after day, it was still green, miraculously still alive, and full of prana!
A Farmer Named Chandi:
As our car rushed through the South Indian landscape, our eyes
feasted on miles of lush and scenic, picture-perfect coconut an d banana plantations, interspersed with beautiful blue back-waters. En route to meet Chandi: a healthy farmer in his late 80s, barefoot and bare-chested, wearing a cotton lungi and a small silver cross on a black thread around his neck. After welcoming us in his home, Chandi invited us to set out to see his farm. Click here to watch Vaidya and Chandi at the farm. Chandi’s 7 Acres of lush greens lands covered with trees, backed by a beautiful river whose name I still cannot pronounce let alone type! Click here to see the beautiful river and learn its name! That day, the weather was perfect, sunshine lit up the trees, the air carried wafts of aromas of nutmeg, herbs and fruits, along with the smell of wet soil, and the silence on the farm was animated with exotic chirps and bird songs. If this was not heaven on earth I don’t know what was!
Nutmeg:
Chandi’s farm now specialized in growing exclusively organic nutmeg, nutmegs but it was a haven for all kinds of herbs and plants. We found wild Sensitive Plant growing everywhere. Click here to watch Sensitive Plant shrink to our touch. Vaidya was also very thrilled to find his favorite plant: Mankand, We did not want to leave this haven but after having a glass of organic nutmeg “aasav” (fermented nutmeg with sugar, almost like sweet wine or port), Nutmeg Aasav we were ready for our almost 6 hours uphill drive to visit a government facility in that specializes in the production of green cardamom and black pepper.
After a 6 hour drive back the same day, we slept for a few hour and then caught a flight to Hyderabad. I was unhappy to leave beautiful South India, but the herb treasury that awaited us there was breathtaking. In a “galli” (back street) in a small town, where single cars can barely pass, floshubh labhoded with cows, pedestrian, and hand-pulled rickshaws, we arrived at an unidentified address – no house numbers or street names! We had only a few hours to look at the inventory before flying back out.
Had we known, we would have probably planned things otherwise, because the warehouses were filled with all kinds of exotic herbs and plants and seeds. In all the years, I had never seen Vaidya so happy! He was in his element. Like a little boy in a toy store!!!
In just about less than 2 weeks, we had been to Mangalore, Coorg, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Tekri, Cochin, Erode. Once I realized this would not be my first and last trip to South India, I was able to let go of the desire to try to slow down our expedition to experience things at a slower more relaxed pace. I told myself that this was like a trailer, a small taste, for the bigger better trip I had already started to plan in my mind, where I would also visit temples for which South India is so famous, amongst other things. In the meantime, click here for my famous “almost last” words!
