The peace of wild things

A leisurely stroll in my home in Kerala yesterday revealed to me a few herbs I had not seen in a long time. The self-imposed exiles that ambitious women impose on themselves meant that I have not lived in Kerala since I was 20. And almost three decades later, I was quite happy to spot a False Daisy amidst the rain lilies in my mother’s garden. False Daisy or Kayonni (Bhringraj in Hindi), as we Malayalis call it, is an essential herb in ayurvedic hair oils. I was my mother’s herb plucker when she had to make her famous hair oil, black as raven, steeped with shallots, gooseberries, curry leaves, shoe flower, henna and False Daisy. The home-made brew was not aesthetic by any standards, but I am happy to report that the hair oil did work wonders and my mane is still pretty much intact despite the many waters of many continents it has been washed in. Allow me to also say that, it had its own fanbase in the Ganga Hostel at JNU, where consumers vouched for its goodness. Startup was unheard of back in 1998, but if ever I had to start one up, it would be this.

I first heard of Dashpushpam in 1995 when Padmavati Teacher listed it for Thiruvathira costumery for the college team for Mahatma Gandhi University Youth Festival. She taught me to scrunch together mukkutti, muyalcheviyan, poovankurunnila, karuka, kayyonni and krishnakanthi among others. Couple of these, were plucked from the campus grounds. Sadly, we have not become the elders with the wherewithal to show these to the next generation and explain their importance. We do not know for one and those who know can’t find them anymore. Local sacrificed at the altar of global.

I am a sucker for knowing the names of plants and flowers and birds and butterflies. I know a monarch from a cabbage to a grass yellow. Now that Google has made it easy to search with pictures, I am forever looking up phyla and strata. Technology has vastly made it easier to know the names of birds and bees. But it is also the sad fact that we now have no leisure to stand and stare or listen to the kutrkoo of the barbet or the did-he-do-it of the lapwing. We are always busy talking, messaging, listening to podcasts and songs via the internet.

If initial reports are to be believed the birds and the bees are losing their navigation because of electro magnetic field from the data centres. Even though data is not robust, something just does not feel right with the world any more. Local knowledge is fast disappearing, so also local inhabitants (if not already disappeared). I have not seen a Blue Mormon butterfly in a long time. The diversity of bird calls we once had in the mornings has thinned. Where none exist, YouTube presents morning music with bird calls to cheer us up. The frequency of bird calls is scientifically proven to relax our minds. Where once I saw coucal in the backyard on a daily basis, its wary rust eyes shining against a black throat, hardly one was seen during my week-long stay in Kerala. I could sit for hours watching it fight with the cat and the crow for a sardine head. if I was lucky, the mongoose would dart past. Where have they all gone?

When the nature poet Wendell Berry passed away two weeks ago, I had the occasion to read through his poems once again. Nobody ever advocated for the peace of wild things better than him. In speaking up for the local and against the global, his words remain forever relevant in this world ravaged by climate change and flash floods. He warned long back that global economy rests on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place. And how true it rings as Nepal paid the price for the climate change even though the emissions that caused it were hardly theirs.

I am presently reading Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know, which is set in 2119-20, a world which has been destroyed by an Inundation (2042), ravaged by more wars and nuclear bombing. There is a strange foreboding with which I read this, as much of what has been forecast for a century later has already happened or is happening. The vanishing of local, whether it be dialect, language, food, flower, fruit, fauna and knowledge traditions is a sure pointer to the replacement of one that is global, irrelevant and soul sucking.

So the idea is this -- stop and stare. Look for the local. If you can, go buy the local fruits from the highway seller who has arranged his falsa, jamun and shahtoot on wicker baskets lined with leaves. Strike a conversation with him, on the supply chain, the demand, his kids and his plans. On a rainy day, buy out the flowers from the lady at the traffic signal, who with a polythene cover on her head, is struggling to finish for the day. And do not bargain even when you know she will agree for less. Humanity needs to win, before the great deluge washes us all away.