Skip to main content

My Cashew Tree

My yard: a view


Cashew boughs overhang my front yard screening the morning sun’s intense rays. Summer in Kerala is not what it used to be. It penetrates the marrow of your bones and saps you dry. Nature metamorphoses into something like an obscene speech from a querulous politician who is obsessed with menstrual blood or murderous patriotism.

The cashew tree stands just outside the yard wall spreading its graceful foliage over the yard. The sight has a rare charm especially because some of the branches bend low, almost touching the ground, in unabashed humility; absolutely unlike our politicians.

It has not been easy to create the natural charm around home though the cashew tree did not ever demand my attention as did most of the smaller plants. As I stood admiring the cashew tree this morning, I realised how much time I spend every day with my plants. They require tender care particularly in summer. They need regular supply of water and protection from pests of all sorts. From the sun too, in some cases. I give them time. Being with them is much more rewarding than following contemporary politics.

The cashew tree doesn’t need any attention, though. It continues to put out new shoots and remains refreshingly green as ever irrespective of the weather. Shine or rain makes little difference to it. I wish to be as indifferently fresh, as cool, unmoved by the over-politicised contaminations in my country.



Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. Abhijit RayMarch 9, 2019 at 12:06 PM

    Nice post. I hope it gives some cashew also.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 10, 2019 at 7:58 PM

      It does. But the tree is more decorative than productive 😃

      Delete
  2. Bushra MuzaffarMarch 9, 2019 at 12:26 PM

    Gardening is indeed rewarding :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jyotirmoy SarkarMarch 10, 2019 at 7:43 PM

    Very nice thoughts, yes, summer is stepping in gradually and the tress need special care.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 10, 2019 at 8:00 PM

      The whole weather pattern of Kerala has undergone a sea change.

      Delete
  4. SubwayAugust 8, 2023 at 2:11 PM

    My front yard is shaded from the harsh morning sun by cashew tree boughs. Kerala's summer is not what it once was. Your bones' marrow is penetrated, and it dries you out. Nature changes into something akin to a lecherous politician's obsessive rant about menstrual blood or homicidal patriotism. Cashew Guide

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...
2 comments
Read more

Relatives and Antidepressants

One of the scenes that remain indelibly etched in my memory is from a novel of Malayalam writer O V Vijayan. Father and little son are on a walk. Father tells son, “Walk carefully, son, otherwise you may fall down.” Son: “What will happen if I fall?” Father: "Relatives will laugh.” I seldom feel comfortable with my relatives. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable in any society, but relatives make it more uneasy. The reason, as I’ve understood, is that your relatives are the last people to see any goodness in you. On the other hand, they are the first ones to discover all your faults. Whenever certain relatives visit, my knees buckle and the blood pressure shoots up. I behave quite awkwardly. They often describe my behaviour as arising from my ego, which used to be a oversized in yesteryear. I had a few such visitors the other day. The problem was particularly compounded by their informing me that they would be arriving by about 3.30 pm and actually reaching at about 7.30 pm. ...
16 comments
Read more

Coffee can be bitter

The dawns of my childhood were redolent of filtered black coffee. We were woken up before the birds started singing in the lush green village landscape outside home. The sun would split the darkness of the eastern sky with its splinter of white radiance much after we children had our filtered coffee with a small lump of jaggery. Take a bite of the jaggery and then a sip of the coffee. Coffee was a ritual in our home back then. Perhaps our parents believed it would jolt our neurons awake and help us absorb our lessons before we set out on the 4-kilometre walk to school after all the morning rituals at home. After high school, when I left home for further studies at a distant place, the ritual of the morning coffee stopped. It resumed a whole decade later when I completed my graduation and took up a teaching job in Shillong. But I had lost my taste for filtered coffee by then; tea took its place. Plain tea without milk – what is known as red tea in most parts of India. Coffee ret...
18 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more