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Mother’s love and the sweet Jam

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N J Ravi Chander
On a recent visit to Vasco in Goa, I stopped at a confectionery to recuperate from bus fatigue and a much-needed snack. While gorging on pastries, something in the glass enclosure caught my eye: home-made guava jams and jellies. The mere sight of them transported me to my childhood days in Bengaluru when my mother, Padmakumari, prepared this delicacy at our home.
The guava jams and jellies were our favourite dessert during our halcyon days. We sourced the fruits from the two giant trees that dotted the garden of our family bungalow. These provided a bounty during the season. When the trees were in fruit, a horde of bats, parakeets, squirrels and monkeys would descend on the garden to devour the fruits. Despite the raids on the orchard, there was plenty for everybody.
My brothers, my father and I, armed with cloth bags slung on our shoulders, would clamber up the branches and harvest the fruits. My mother would then pick the delicious, ripened ones for the making of the jam. The ‘jam session’ was an elaborate affair and required skill, patience and effort aplenty.
The perfectly ripe fruits would be cut into four, boiled, mashed, sieved and finally cooked and stirred with the ingredients until they achieved a thick consistency. As the jam cooked and its scent wafted into the adjoining rooms, its aroma would lure us into the kitchen, and we would sample the delicacy.
My mother was famous for her jam-making skills, so much so that her story spread far and wide. Many a neighbour, friend or relative would unashamedly ask for an extra container of the fabulous jam. Though my mother was good at making an assorted variety of fruit jams, including mango preserves and coconut burfi, the guava jam stood out from the rest of the pack and was our favourite. We loved the delicious spread on our chappatis, pooris, dosas and idlis or just enjoyed finger-licking them.
When my mother was not around, my siblings and I would slip into the kitchen, draw out spoonfuls of the mouth-watering pulp and thrust them into our mouths. They tasted like manna from heaven. The exorbitantly priced branded varieties of jams sold in the retail outlets are poor cousins to ‘amma’s jam’. And the best part was that they were completely organic and free of preservatives. My beloved mamma and the guava trees are no more, but the sweet memories continue to linger.
(The author is a fomer banker. He hails from Bangaluru and has taken writing as a past time. He is a regular contributor to ‘Kashmir Vision’)


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