NO SHADOW DAY

24 April 2021

It is No Shadow Day again. 

Go out on the stroke of noon or thereabouts and look for your shadow. You don't see it? What did I tell you?

Just like it did last year, it rained heavily last night. And the weather is not exactly balmy. It is bright and sunny - perfect weather to be out and about.

But it is also Weekend Lockdown Day. So I can't be out and about. Not to worry. I have been gifted books that I have yet to read, by a good and caring friend. The tree to curl up under that wasn't there earlier still isn't there, but the old sofa is there as solid as ever, and I have all day. So you know what I'll be doing.

What will you be doing to-day? Apart from looking for your shadow, that is.

***

24 April 2020

NO SHADOW DAY 2020

"The dry spell continues. At least in these parts where I dwell. ...

..... (some 200 words in between) .....

So, all in all, drought conditions prevail. The dry spell continues."

Yesterday, I had reprised a four-year old memory of the dry spell continuing and drought conditions prevailing and all that sort of thing.

The weather gods, not too happy with my reprising and posting four-year old memories that have no relevance for them when they had been having different plans altogether, decided on a swift reprisal.

 

Late in the night, the skies opened up. It poured, and poured like the dickens, and did not let up till the sun came up. And when the sun finally came up, it did not show its face but hovered behind a cover of clouds. We were treated to a diffused spread till well past breakfast time.

Balmy weather prevails now. The kind of weather when you look for a tree under which to curl up with a book. I don't have a tree to curl up under nearby, but I have a book, and I have a sofa.

A well-meaning friend informed, through a kind forward that some well-meaning friend of his must have forwarded to him, that to-day is No Shadow Day and, at a particular time of the day when the sun will be at its zenith, there will be no shadows. He did not mention where all the shadows will go but that is not important now. The sun is at its zenith and I am going to go out up to my gate and look for that shadow that isn't there and, after making sure it really isn't there, I am going to come back in and curl up with a book.

See you in some time. It sure feels funny without a shadow!

- © Shiva Kumar

Veppampoo Pachadi

VEPPAMPOO PACHADI

Separating the tiny flowers from a bunch of leaves of the Neem tree is an arduous task. You have to take care to remove only the flowers, without pulling out the slender stalks too. If these stalks find their way along with the flowers into the 'pachadi' or 'rasam' that the flowers are used in preparing, their bitter taste can seep into the dish and make it less palatable.

 

A half of the harvest you see in the picture was used to prepare a 'pachadi' consisting of these flowers, known as 'veppampoo', jaggery and tamarind as the main ingredients. A thin solution of jaggery and tamarind pulp is boiled till it just starts to thicken and then it is tempered with dried red chillies and mustard seeds sputtered in heated oil with the neem flowers being dropped into it finally, just after the tempering oil is removed from the flame and begins to cool, singeing but not burning them.

(The remaining half of the neem flowers are kept in cold storage and will be used to season a rasam that takes its name from them - 'veppampoo rasam'.)

It took me the better part of an hour to harvest a tiny fistful of flowers. So it's not surprising that we do it only once a year. 

This year I had sort of insisted in my mind that I would engage in this flower picking activity only if the New Year's Day fell on a Sunday and, as if bowing to my wishes, the Panchangam duly obliged.

-  © Shiva Kumar, 14 April 2019