Foraging in the forest
A walk through Aarey reveals the bounty of Mumbai’s most significant patch of green.
It is a majestic hawk, sitting rigid on a leafless branch. I stare in awe, careful to make no movement that may disturb its reverie. I’m content to just watch.
Beyond the bird is a a haze of pink — ‘Indian cherry blossoms’ or gliricidia sepium — juxtaposing colour against ugly concrete buildings. A few trees over from the hawk, a group of people are picking flowers. The tree above them has prickly bark, scattered leaves and wavy flowers. When in bloom, the katesavar or red silk cotton tree is a joyous sight, an umbrella of red. Its beauty extends beyond its looks: the flowers are believed to improve male potency, the nectar attracts birds and bees, the fruit pods have cotton, and the petals are edible.
Below the tree, a short plant with dusty flowers reveals seeds similar to sabja (sweet basil seeds), which can also be used in falooda. “It’s the desi chia seed,” someone mutters excitedly. Flowers picked, we walk away. I glance back at the hawk, which hasn’t moved. Instead, I now spot a kite resting on a barbed wire hedge. When walking in a forest, it is advisable to look forward, not back. You can get scratched by barbed wire, or nearly step on leopard scats (an indication that the majestic beast had passed that way hours earlier). It’s difficult to focus the eyes when beauty is all around.
In one small area, I’ve encountered edible flowers, a medicinal plant, seen the markings of a leopard, and spotted two majestic birds.
In Aarey Forest, there’s always more than meets the eye.
Forest trails
On a hot Sunday morning, as the sun blazes a path through the sky, I make my way to one of the city’s most beautiful areas. Aarey Forest is one of Mumbai’s last-remaining green spaces; recently, 800 acres of land in Aarey Milk Colony was declared a reserve forest. It’s been in the news because apathetic leaders, prioritizing development over forest cover, have wanted to destroy it. Tribals have been displaced and their livelihoods destroyed because of increasing encroachment. Film City has eaten into a large part of the forest. There was a controversy over the destruction of trees for a Metro shed — a decision that is now on hold. These days, daily fires ‘mysteriously’ appear all over.
Aarey is proof that despite man’s involvement, nature can still thrive. On that day of rest, I am in Aarey to get a glimpse of the forest’s bounty and meet some of the 8,000 tribal people who call it their home. I’m there for a forest foraging walk conducted by Hallu Hallu, an experiential company.
A group of strangers, in various stages of sun, and COVID-protection, gather under a tree to meet our guide. Adivasi activist Vanitatai Thakre is a petite woman with a carrying voice, a strength that belies her small frame, and a dry sense of humour: her first words are, “I’m not related to that Thackeray”. Vanita’s family resides in Aarey — it was home to their ancestors and they hope it will be home to their children. Accompanying her is environmentalist Sanjiv Valsan, who lives in Aarey and works to protect the forest and the rights of its inhabitants.
The sun is high in the sky as we begin our walk, streaming past a gaushala (cow shelter), stacked with bales of hay and decorated with drying cowdung cakes. On the way, Vanita tells us the food they grow is natural: they don’t use fertilisers and use soil fortified by cowdung to grow vegetables.
Our feet trample down leaves and plants bent over by the passage of many before us. Our shoes squelch through wet mud, as we try vainly to avoid soaking our feet. We wander past demarcated patches of plantation, showing off karela (bitter gourd), red amaranth, tomatoes and more. Vanita points out takla (cassia tora)—a wild leafy vegetable, the nitrogen-fixing plant is full of nutrients, and the seeds are brewed and drunk like coffee; tiny tomatoes growing wild; and small round berries (like blueberries) that are used to make colour for Holi.
Sanjiv, meanwhile, points out the taad (palmyra palm trees), valued for their leaves, and fruit — used for toddy, sugar or jaggery. As part of the effort to re-wild Aarey, he and other activists have planted hundreds of taad and mahua trees.
Over a small hillock, with a distant view of the ugly buildings that have eaten into part of the forest, we make our first stop.
It’s time to forage.
Digging deep
Foraging, simply put, is searching for wild foods that haven’t been cultivated. It’s what tribals in the forest rely on for their daily sustenance. Sanjiv expounds on the benefits: “foraging isn’t harmful to nature, it doesn’t require cultivation orpesticides, it is a good backup to agricultural work, it makes people aware of the bounty of the forest.”
Our first foraging experience is picking wild amaranthus or jungli maath. This has to be carefully picked: it has small but sharp thorns on the stem.
Vanita plucks a plant from a muddy patch and holds it up. This is the naala bhaji, a relative of Thai water spinach that is usually found near water. Everyone gets down on their haunches and starts looking for the long, arrow-shaped leaves that indicate this plant.
One bag filled, we move on to the palash tree, also abloom. Its dazzling orange and yellow colour flowers earn it the nickname, flame of the forest or forest fire. Like the mahua tree, every part of this tree is put to use: the bark, leaves, seeds and flowers. In the monsoons, the leaves grow bigger and these are used to create plates and other ‘dishes’. Branches of the palash tree are symbolic during wedding rituals. Palash’s flowers aren’t plucked; the fallen ones are used. Vanita tells us they brew the dried flowers in water and drink the tea to cool the body in summer. It is also useful for treating menstrual cramps.
We bend down again and start picking flowers from the carpet below the tree. Nearby, Vanita points out a prickly plant that’s used to treat gripes in children. Another prickly plant they call vikhra is used to treat people who have been possessed.
Foraging, needless to say, is hard work. There is a skill involved in finding the right plant, knowing what is edible, and how to pluck/ pick it. It takes time too — cooking reduces the quantity of plants and flowers — so it has to be picked in abundance.
After a quick break for breakfast: tea and steamed karanda (a local aerial yam), we head deeper up into the forest for the task of the day, uprooting kandh, another tuber. These large tubers find root deep into the ground—one kandh can feed a family for a month. The one we gather around is four years old. Uprooting it a delicate process — there is value in keeping it whole. To do this, they make a circle around the root and start digging down till the base is reached. It is backbreaking work. Fresh coconut water provides relief from the harsh sun. After two hours of digging, the dusty tuber is carried proudly back to base.
On my plantain leaf
The vibrant leaves of the banana tree are our plates for the day. We wash them with water, and settle down on mats placed on a cow dung-smattered courtyard.
Vanita’s family serves us a feast. Earlier in the day, we got to see some of the food getting cooked. Aluminium handis on a row of wood-fired chulhas (and a smokeless mud chulha), bubbling with onions and chillies crisping up in oil; naala bhaji cooking down to a quarter of its size, and dal simmering into shape. The last chulha is for the nachni (ragi) rotis, spread on the tava by hand and shaped and cooked till the edges crisp up.
The rotis come first, dark pink and thick with a nice earthy flavour. There’s meaty kandh cooked like a stir-fry with onions and tomatoes. There’s a pungent bamboo dish too, cooked with and without dried shrimp. The herbaceous maath is cooked plain to provide some relief from other fiery dishes. Accompaniments are pickled raw mango and radish salad, and a raw mango chutney. The star on my plate — which also leaves lasting effect on my delicate stomach — is a powdery bombil and chilli chutney.
While we eat, the family sets up a little market, filled with the leafy vegetables we passed by in the morning, and some added produce like raw mangoes and spinach.
Under the canopy of trees, the plantain-leaf meal is a satiating one. Talk moves from food about tribal customs (they have a god for practically every aspect of their life), the beauty of the forest in the monsoon, how to help (join Sanjiv’s Rewilding Aarey group), the importance of foraging and eating sustainably, and local liquor. The conversation is nourishing too—there’s much to learn and understand. My mind goes back to the hawk I spotted earlier in the day and the lesson it taught me: there is value to sitting still in a forest.
