Posts tagged malnad diary

The sounds we heard last evening at Nandi Thota. We were on the upper deck of our bungalow. The humid air promised rain whereas the sky was clear. The birds were subdued and the crickets were muted, as though they were both doing a sound check to improve their performance. It was bedtime for the birds and starting time for the crickets and they should both have been shrill.

Now in the morning the leaves of the coffee plants are glowing with life given them by the dew. The sounds of the birds and the crickets are downed by the chug and drone of our neighbour’s pump. It is draining the stream that separates our plantations.

I’ve pulled on my headphones and tapped on Tom Waits. But audio above is of last evening’s.

Source: SoundCloud / Shashikiran Mullur

malnad diarykarnatakaindiacoffee
Civet Home This tree with the tresses is the bhaine tree. They make kallu with it, which is a safe, intoxicant drink. Some nights ago, (my son) Yashas taught me to hold a torch with its base on my forehead, like a miner’s lamp, and look into the plantation. Quite quickly, I caught the first gleaming eyes looking at me from this bhaine. A black creature like a bandicoot; it began to slither down the tree. Then another came after it, and another, and another. Bandicoots up a tree? It turned they were civets. During the day you see their excrement on the tracks in the plantation, which you can tell is theirs because it is full of coffee beans. The beans are special when they are processed like this in the civet’s bowels, and fetch a goodly sum in foreign markets. Civet coffee, selling for the price of wine! $30 a cup!

Civet Home

This tree with the tresses is the bhaine tree. They make kallu with it, which is a safe, intoxicant drink. Some nights ago, (my son) Yashas taught me to hold a torch with its base on my forehead, like a miner’s lamp, and look into the plantation. Quite quickly, I caught the first gleaming eyes looking at me from this bhaine. A black creature like a bandicoot; it began to slither down the tree. Then another came after it, and another, and another. Bandicoots up a tree? It turned they were civets. During the day you see their excrement on the tracks in the plantation, which you can tell is theirs because it is full of coffee beans. The beans are special when they are processed like this in the civet’s bowels, and fetch a goodly sum in foreign markets. Civet coffee, selling for the price of wine! $30 a cup!

malnad diary
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