Coconuts and Poochis

Like many, many households in the south, we have coconut trees in our garden. When I look out the window I can see our three, and four more from the houses beside and behind us. For years our trees provided us with all the coconut for our chutneys, and for the occasional glass of tender coconut water.

Lately, though, a lot of the coconuts have fallen from the tree before reaching maturity; some the gardener has cut down only to find that they had turned to dried husks. Last week one of the garden contract laborers who's been doing some temporary work here shinnied up to the crown of a coconut tree, and declared that it was infested with poochis (insects). He told Mary that if we purchased the ingredients, he would make them into a sort of poultice and apply them around the coconut stems, to kill or drive off the poochis. Rs. 25 per tree, plus a tip, for the labour and expertise.


Here's what Mary bought:

rock salt
mothballs
sambrani (a kind of incense)
turmeric
edible camphor (used here in some sweets)

The work was completed very quickly. I don't know how long it will take for the results to show, but we are well-poulticed now.

A Gift

Yesterday the paperkkaarar came to buy our old newspapers, Diet Pepsi tins, magazines, empty bottles and so on. We usually call him in -- he cycles by with his cart every few days -- only after the shelves in the ironing room are bulging with stuff. Mary and Lakshmi haul more things out of Mary's room: bits of torn paper, scrap metal from valves and pipes which have been replaced, empty tins of canned corn, plastic milk sachets. The proceeds from this venture are shared among us, under a long-established system which I haven't fully figured out.

Yesterday Lakshmi was shaking the paperkkaarar's coarse burlap sack to make sure that it was empty, and this fell out:


The picture shows the actual size -- at least on my computer screen. It's a press for making sweets, or savoury snacks. I was attracted to the design inside. I said, "I'll buy this from you." The paperkkaarar said, "Go ahead, take it, no need to give anything."

So I received a gift yesterday. It fell from a sack. It is worth nothing, even to the paperkkaarar. And I'm ridiculously pleased with it.