This is the twenty eighth article in a series I am writing for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'. The series is for children. Adults consider yourselves warned...you might re-discover a child within you! Scroll down for other articles in this series.
‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is a Welsh saying
that’s quoted often. In fact apples are
often among the top healthy foods in the world.
Some even believe that it is the No 1 Healthy Food in the world. The truth is that apples would never be
considered No 1 by anyone who has heard of Nelli.
Nelli is a Sinhala
and Tamil name for what botanists in the West call ‘Indian Gooseberry’. If you were to look up (say on Google) the
medicinal uses and nutritional worth of the nelli
you will quickly conclude that there’s some sense in describing the apple as a
glorified vegetable. If Vitamin C content is important, consider
this: Nelli is the richest source of
natural vitamin C!
Nelli is rich in
protein, fiber, calcium, vitamin C and riboflavin. It promotes longevity, helps digestion,
strengthens the heart, is good for your eyes and is used in all kinds of
medicinal concoctions for the treatment of all kinds of ailments.
But this is not about how healthy the nelli is. It is not about
insulting apples and apple-lovers, although the next time you see a shiny apple
(coated with wax, most likely) you might ask yourself whether it’s worth the
money. And the next time you see nelli you might tell yourself, ‘we are so
rich and we don’t know it!’ This is
about flavors (yes, there are more flavors in that tiny fruit than in an apple,
in case you were wondering!).
The nelli has six
different flavors: sour, sweet, salty, bitter, astringent
and pungent. Now that has to be rich,
wouldn’t you agree? And that richness is
what we are talking about.
The world is made of
people who come in all kinds of flavors.
Some are sour. Some are
sweet. Some are bitter. We meet such people all the time. And it’s not that people can be defined in
terms of such flavors. The thing with
people is that they change. Like the nelli.
Take a bite and you’ll immediately identify sourness, a tinge of
bitterness and even saltiness. Chew on it a while and you’ll detect
sweetness.
Just like people. Someone
who is sour at one moment might be the sweetest person you’ve ever met at
another time, in another situation. Very
few people are sweet all the time. Very
few people can be bitter all day long, and day after day and into weeks, months
and years. It’s like the weather in some
parts of the world. If you don’t like
it, all you need to do is to wait patiently – it will change into something you
like.
So you might say that the
world is made of nelli-people. It’s not hard to observe. What might make it even easier to observe and
understand is the fact that we ourselves are like the nelli. We are made of
different flavors. Call them mood if you
like. If you think about the moods that
have visited you over the last 24 hours, if you were over that period of time
minute by minute or say half an hour by half an hour, you’ll realize that it
has been uneven. Some nice moments, some
not-so-nice moments. You must have
smiled, but might have also frowned.
The wonderful thing about
this nelli-business is that the moment you realize that you are like the nelli, it’s easier to deal with the
‘nelliness’ around you.
The nelli will
keep a lot of doctors away (specialists that is). Understanding ‘nelliness’ will help clear your mind from a lot of
impurities.
It is cool to slosh around
You can compose your own music
Pebbles are amazing things
You can fly if you want to
The happiest days of our lives
So what do you want to do with the rain?
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