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| The wild vegetables dishes beautifully arranged with flowers at Bhomale |
I read about the Wild Vegetables Festival in the newspaper.
It was organised by an NGO called Kalpvriksh, which I had heard about so I
knew it would be worthwhile. The festival was organised over three Sundays, one
of which I had already missed, the second was at Kharpud, where an estimated
500 people were to arrive. I decided to skip that. The third and the last was
to be at Bhomale, 93 kms away from Pune, the farthest of the three, so I knew
there wouldn’t be much of a crowd.
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| Swayamvar Pure Veg. at Khed. |
Since hiring a cab would have been too expensive for me
alone, I spread word about it asking if there are people who want to join me. I
promptly received confirmations and on 24th September at 7 a.m a
group of us 6 girls set out for Bhomale.
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| Lovely scenery on the drive. |
You may like my blog post on Cuisine of the Lepchas in Dzongu.
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| A lake that we passed. |
We stopped for breakfast at Swayamvar Pure Veg. Here's the location on Google maps. It’s useful
mentioning these things in case there are others who want to stop. The toilets
were clean and the vada-pav was delicious J
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| The gathering under the canopy of trees. |
At around 11.30 we reached Bhomale and were met with a sight
of all villagers assembled under a canopy of trees with their dishes arranged
beautifully with flowers. I met the coordinator from Kalpvriksh, Pradeep
Chavan, whom I had been in touch with and sat down for the event to begin.
Bhomale, is a village with a population of around 150 in 35
houses. Many generations ago the tribal people of this place called Mahadev
Koli, were hunters and gatherers and practiced no agriculture. Now-a-days,
people have their kitchen garden where they grow vegetables like pumpkin and
ridge gourd. Outside of the forest limits, people have plots of lands where they grow finger millet, rice and barnyard millet. But I was told this is a more recent trend. People still gather from the forest
surrounding their village.
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| I asked this beautiful lady with the 'nath' (nose-ring) if I could take her picture. She promptly took the pallu over her head and posed :-) |
From the months from June to September, during
the Monsoon, is the peak time when the forest is bountiful with wild
vegetables, berries, nuts and roots. Bhomale sees heavy rainfall every year
(around 1000 mm), but that notwithstanding people venture into the forests to
gather food. Any excess produce is dried or cured and preserved for the other
months when forest supplies are scarce. Because of the climate, the wild
vegetation is also unique to the place. Of late, people have also started
buying cultivated vegetables and grains from the nearest shop which is a 30 kms
walk!
As is the custom traditionally In India, men and women were
seated separately for the event. I turned to observe the women seated beside me. It was a
special occasion for the village, since it was a Wild Vegetables Festival and
people like me from the cities were visiting. So they had worn their best
sarees, most draped in ‘navvari’ style (‘nav’ means nine), where the nine-yard
saree is draped like a dhoti on the lower part of the body. They had also worn
a nose ring very typically Maharashtrian, called the ‘nath’. They all looked
beautiful J
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| Women performing 'Aarti' to the food keeping with the Indian tradition of worshipping food as God. 'Annam Brahma'. |
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| A welcome song by the children. |
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| Another song by a lady. |
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| The Forest official V.P. Kadam giving an inspirational speech. |
It’s needless to say that I had been eyeing the plates laden
with food since the time I arrived. So I took a few close up pictures and
enquired with the women as to what the vegetable were.
After some time, the main event started, with Chief guests,
speakers, welcome songs so on and so forth.
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| A dish prepared from the tender stem of sweet potato leaves. |
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| A seed called 'Chahechabar'- aids in digestion. The spelling is phonetic. You can also the the fruit of the 'Chahechabar'. |
You may like my blog post on Himachali/Pahari cuisine.
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| A variety of wild eggplants called 'Chichurde'. |
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| The leafy vegetable is a dish made of drumstick leaves and to the left is a dish made of wild gooseberries. This was served with bhakris (flatbread) made of rice flour. |
One of the forest officials, V.P. Kadam, gave a very
impressive talk on the bio-diversity of the place and the importance to
preserve the culinary heritage. Falling for false aspirations’, the village
people have stopped valuing the food which their communities have been eating
for ages and have started to increasingly buy common vegetables from the market
30 kms away. He said if the people don’t uphold their culinary and food
heritage, it will be lost to the generations to come. He reinforced the
importance of being proud of what they have- something the city people envy-
clean air, proximity to the forests and food provided by the forests which is
completely devoid of chemicals or adulteration.
Since these are uncultivated foods, he also stressed that
people who want to sell the forest produce must be mindful of the way they
harvest, so as to leave the seeds and stalks for the produce the following
year.
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| Clockwise from Left: 'Kusraachi Bhaji', root vegetable called 'Tambooli' which stays good for 3 months and a dish made with wild gooseberries. |
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| Dishes in the forefront: To the left is flatbread made of finger millet (ragi, nachni) with Garlic chutney and to the right is a dish called 'aloowadi' made with colocasia leaves. It's also called 'patra' in Gujarati and 'pathrode' in Himachal Pradesh. |
You may like my blog post on Kumaoni cuisine.
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| Top: Finger millet flatbread and a dish made with drumstick leaves. Bottom is 'varai laddoo' a sweet prepared with barnyard millet. |
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| A seed called 'Kombaale'. It had a bitter aftertaste and is believed to be good for diabetics. |
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| A spoonful of everything on my plate :-) |
After his talk as well as by some other people including
village people, we formed a queue to sample the food which was now moved to the
table. There were around 15 different kinds of dishes prepared by the women and
we were given samples of it on plates. The dishes tasted very unique and some
were hot on account of the chilli powder used liberally!
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| The 'Devraai' beyond the temple. |
After the sampling, we were invited for a proper lunch of
rice, daal and curry to another place. After the crowd left, I spent some time
sketching the dense green forest beyond the temple. The temple is of Lord
Bhairav, a form of Lord Shiva and women are not allowed to enter inside. Beyond
the forest is what is called ‘Devraai’ in Marathi, meaning ‘garden/orchard of
the Gods’- ‘Dev’ meaning God. Devrais are believed to be presided over by
forest deities and nymphs and no one can take away even a twig or a leaf from
the Devrai, leave alone cutting trees. Doing so would be a gross violation to
the forest deity and would invoke their wrath which is not a good idea
since these people subsist on the forest surrounding it. This belief has
ensured the survival of these forest pockets which have been around for
thousands of years and has survived the greed of land sharks. As outsiders, we
were instructed to not even go near it. I wanted to do some sketching of the
Devrai so I chose a spot near the temple for a better view and I was asked to
move farther away.
I was inspired to draw the Forest Nymph after visiting Bhomale, so here's my illustration posted on my Art page, Purple Soul.
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| A glimpse of the village. |
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| People gathered for lunch in the village school. |
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| The 'normal' lunch! |
I did a quick sketch and soaked up the green view as much as the time
constraint would permit and joined the rest of the group for a meal of rice,
daal and dried peas curry. Most of the people were almost finishing so I joined
the forest officials. The women had reserved some extra portions of the wild
vegetables for the forest officials and since I was seated with them I got a
second generous helping of those.
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| A group picture with the women of Bhomale. |
After lunch, we visited the home of one of the women where I asked to
see the uncooked wild vegetables. They said that all that they gather is eaten
the same day, excepting the ones that are dried and cured. They showed me a few
of those. I hope to go some day with them to gather food and document that too.
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| Barnyard Millet also called 'varai' in Marathi. |
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| Finger millet. |
I bought some finger millet and barnyard millet from them which are completely organic in the truest sense. And came back home with a refreshed mind and heart and belly :-)
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