Blending Nostalgia & Magic ~ Madh Thoppu

[This is a very random picture of random flowers, nothing to do with madh thoppu :)]

Most of my stories of Coorg on this blog will invariably be stories of my dear mother. Unless you count the two months of summer vacations we used to spend at my grandparents' place, i haven't ever really lived in coorg and hence most of my stories and tales are stuff that I've heard from my mother,  mostly also in the beautiful warm flavourful and fragrant surroundings of her kitchen. She regales me with stories from her childhood, from her teenage years, from when she was the belle of the village right up until when she married my father and had to leave the land she always called home.  I had to head back home to Bangalore a couple of weeks earlier to recover from an illness smack in the middle of the monsoon season. After I had spent time at home recouping lost energies, my parents and I went to a Food festival in the Kodava Samaj in Bangalore.

 Every relatively big town I have visited in Coorg has a kodava samaja, which function like community clubs - a space for people to get-together, also a shared space available for rent for the town-people to celebrate weddings and other important days of their lives. Most kodavas you speak to from my parents' generation and earlier and in fact even some from my generation, have held their wedding ceremonies at a kodava samaja. One can also think about the samaja as an association that doesn't necessarily have a physical space that makes it's existence legitimate. There are kodava samajas in Singapore, in North America, in Canada - a band of kodavas that form a community that invariably gets together during key kodava festivals. 

After that brief digression on what a kodava samaja is, I get back to my story about me attending this food festival. Imagine a food festival of Kodava food - i couldn't believe my good luck. Although, upon arrival there i realised my celebration was premature (and unwarranted). While most, if not all, stalls served home cooked food, the lack of variety was lamentable. I could have lived with no diversity, as long as the food served was delicious. Either I am a very stern critic of food or I have had the luxury of growing up eating gorgeous food - either way I am spoilt. My grand mother and mother's Pandi (pork) curry recipe is sheer magic - my grand father and father do not cook, but they are immensely critical of anything their wives prepared - I've seen them praise a particular dish or a meal to the heavens, but I have also seen them make faces and murmur how a certain dish lacked a particular spice or ingredient. Maybe, I inherited the art of (not-so-subtle) critique from them.

Thatha would have stomped out of the hall had he tasted the pandi curries on sale there. I tried three stalls and like Thatha's grand-daughter commented on the lack of flavour in one or too much puli (kachampuli, a coorg vinegar) in another. So every stall had kadambuttu and pandi curry and all of them made me scrunch up my nose in disappointment. The only other variety was pork chops and chilli pork, stuff i didn't feel like trying after the dismal showing of the crowning glory of kodava cuisine - pandi curry & kadambuttu.

I digress again, this post is not about either of those two dishes or my disappointment with the food festival. As I walked over for my fourth cup of filter coffee (south indian filter coffee is my pick-me-up, actually so is cutting chai), I crossed a stall that was selling homemade marmalades, pickles and wines and in one corner, was a purple coloured cake with a sign next to it, "Maddh Puttu". Now I had always heard about this magical puttu which if taken once a year gives the kodavas immense immunity against diseases and the strength to working hard in their estates and paddy fields. Maddh puttu derives it's name from a plant called, maddh thoppu. How very simple eh. Madh means medicine, puttu is name given to anything dish shaped from rice, and thoppu is leaf or leaves. I had always heard of madh puttu or even madh payasa, a porridge or pudding version, but i had no memory of what it tasted like. I hung around that stall, wondering if I should buy a couple of pieces of that madh puttu, but it didn't look all that appetising and so I walked away. Not that anything that is medicinal has the additional duty to be appealing to look at anyway. I walked back to where my parents were and told them about it and how I had never tasted it in my life. To which my father showed extreme disbelief and my mother was downright mortified. "Of course you've had it, you're a kodava, what do you mean by you haven't, you just don't remember" With my kodava identity at stake, i nodded to her explanation of my memory failing me instead. 

And it might be true, because ma says she definitely fed it to me when I was a child. And i must have been very young when this happened, for this legendary madh thoppu doesn't grow throughout the year and pops up only in the rainy season. Actually, the plant itself is evergreen, but it's medicinal properties come forth only in the monsoons - every other time of the year, the leaves are devoid of any specialness. How do the kodavas know this? Because to make madh puttu or payasa, you have to boil the leaves in water and only in this season does the water change color to a very deep purple - all other times of the year, the water retains its colourlessness. Quite amazing.

Madh Thoppu, scientifically known as justicia wynaadensis, grows wild in kodagu. In the months of July and August, the rains are quite relentless, so much so that you can't step out of the house without a sheet of rain enveloping you within. This intense weather renders any kind of work worthless or impossible. It is exactly in these harsh conditions that you need the powers of the madh thoppu to still go out and continue to work hard in the estates and the paddy fields. It is not uncommon to see old ladies dressed in winter gear from head scarves, socks, mufflers, sweater to gloves even. Because it does indeed get that cold with all that rain and mostly because of the lack of sunlight during those days. And hence madh thoppu comes to the rescue.

This period is known as Kakkada and is traditionally known to be inauspicious. Logically it makes sense, because the rains anyway make you helpless & most works are halted until kodagu is blessed with brighter days again. Madh thoppu is known to only be beneficial during that month. In fact on the 18th day (usually August 3rd) of the kakkada month , which is from mid-july to mid-august, it reaches the zenith of it's medicinal value. Kakkada padinett (kakkada 18) is celebrated in all kodava homes with the preparation of madh puttu or payasa. One legend says on the 18th day of kakkada, the leaves are said to possess 18 herbal qualities. 

[Source : The Hindu. Kodavas buying Madh Thoppu on the even of Kakkada Padinett]

On kakkda padinett, and throughout the month of kakkada, you'll find this magic potion brewing in kodava kitchens. These leaves are boiled in water resulting in a thick, dark violet syrup with a sweet and unique aroma. My mother says when her mother used to make the syrup in huge vats, the sweet aroma of this solution would permeate the entire house floating in the air along with the evocative fragrance of rains. My mother spoke to me in detail about how the leaves (as seen in the picture above) are plucked from the stem, which are then discarded, they are slightly pressed or crushed and then left to soak for a few hours or overnight, post which they are boiled. This is when the leaves shed a gorgeous purple colour, my mom prefers to call it indigo. This solution is then used to either cook putu or payasa.

Either God heard me say that I had forgotten the taste of madh putu or had pity on me and my illness, for the very next day our kodava neighbour walks in with a bottle of this syrup. She gives it to my mother, who uses it the next morning to make us a divine madh payasa. A porridge made of rice, fresh shredded coconut, jaggery and of course the madh syrup. She was so excited about introducing it to me, she interrupted my morning yoga, to drag me to the kitchen for me to see the shade of purple she had described earlier. And the house truly had this amazing aroma almost like a frangipani tree had blossomed and was perfuming the air. My mom of course had many many monsoons of nostalgia attached to what she was seeing and what she could smell. For a brief moment I saw her childhood reflect on her face and in her grin & glee. It made me so happy to watch her.

The payasa unlike the putu is sweetened and hence easier to eat i guess. But the taste is quite peculiar. Now, the kodavas are known to enjoy these peculiar flavours. Many a time when I have introduced friends to kodava baimbele (bamboo shoot) curry or maange pajji (mango and yogurt raita) they've had a tough time coming to terms with the flavours on their tongues. Madh payasa is a little like that i'm afraid. I loved it, and ate it for lunch and dinner too, but i can literally taste the herbal-ness of it. This annual monsoon ritual, so critical to a farming community like ours, is still followed. Those who are not in kodagu, like my parents, are sent either the thoppu or bottled syrups by relatives & friends from there - exactly how this particular bottle landed up on our doorstep. So invariably you'll find during the rains in a kodava home, a pot boiling away with these magic leaves, filling our homes with stories from the past, but also shielding us from the rains and anything inauspicious. I asked ma if she thinks this tradition of kakkada padinett and madh thoppu will be followed once the last few keepers of it pass through the sands of time. Her reply will always stay with me in some corner of my kodava heart - that depends on what you children do with it.