Haldi (Turmeric) milk

When I went to purchase milk at the Mother Diary Booth today, I was surprised to find Turmeric milk.  It is priced at Rupees 25 and on an impulse, for I was little amused, I purchased it.  The milk has no flavour of Turmeric (Haldi in Hindi); it was too sweet and to add insult to injury it was butterscotch flavoured.  Exactly what Haldi milk is not.

Amma used to make us drink hot milk with haldi powder (or Manjapodi in Tamil) and pepper. whenever we had sore throat.  Sugar was never added.  The milk was given to us last thing in the night before we went to sleep.  Couple of days of it and the sore throat would disappear.  Growing up my brother and I never took cough syrups or antibiotics for cold.  Even now whenever we tell her that we have sore throat, she will instruct us to drink milk with manjapodi and pepper.

Nowadays, Sumitra, my maid, who is well-versed in latest trends, exhorts me to drink haldi milk everyday.  In winters we get fresh turmeric root in the market.  So instead of using the powder, she ensures that I grate the root, boil milk with that, and drink it every night.  This summer she got fresh roots for me from her native state, Uttarakhand.  But hot milk during summer is something I cannot do.  So I will wait for the temperature to cool down before satisfying Sumitra.

Amaltas (Laburnum)-The harbinger of Summer

Every year, around the last week of April or the first week of May, the campus lights up with yellow flowers.  And with the flowering of the Laburnum (Amaltas in Hindi), the harsh days of Summer starts.  I always watch for the Amaltas to bloom for it is a fascinating sight.  Through the winter and much of March/April, the tree is just bare branches.  It is just there, easy to miss.  And then the yellow blooms appear and the tree lights up.  It is so beautiful to see the tree covered in yellow. The green leaves appear later.

As the South-West monsoon sets in Kerala around last week of May and starts moving upwards, the yellow blooms fade and fall.  By June, when it is hot and sweltering, the tree covered only with the green leaves. By October/November, the green leaves fall off leaving behind the bare tree.  So the cycle continues.

This year, May was mild with lots of rainy days.  The Amaltas blooms lasted well into June, which is when I captured the following images on the campus:

The mild days of May has meant that we have not had any decent monsoon showers in Delhi.  Of course, Delhi never gets the kind of rains that Mumbai does but usually we have couple of days of pre-monsoon showers followed by monsoon showers towards end of June/beginning of July.  It is mid-July and we have not had any rains.

My brother and I were remembering my Periappa (Appa's eldest brother) who was a meteorologist.  He would always watch the temperatures and wind direction. Harsh temperatures followed by dust storms (aandhi in Hindi) meant that monsoon would be normal and we could expect good rains.  He would also say that the wind direction has to be from east for Delhi to get rains.

Climate change has of course changed everything.  For the past couple of years, monsoon season has extended up to end of September to early October. Delhi now gets rains only towards end of July.

Meantime, it is raining in Chennai when it should not.  Chennai (pretty much of entire Tamilnadu) should get rains due to the North-East monsoon. The monsoon season for Chennai is essential for filling up the reservoirs.

But then everything is topsy turvy this year!