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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/the-new-climate/in-the-eastern-ghats-india-climate-change-is-erasing-the-taste-of-home-8c7b7a396d64>
“Basanti holds a dried turmeric rhizome between her thumb and forefinger and
snaps it with a sharp, dry crack that echoes slightly off the mud-plastered
walls of her veranda. She doesn't look at me immediately. Instead, she holds
the jagged pieces up to the horizontal morning light filtering through the
jackfruit canopy, turning them slowly like a jeweller inspecting a flawed
diamond.
I have spent twenty-two days a month in villages like this one for over a
decade, and I have learned in the Eastern Ghats of Odisha, India, that silence
is often the most descriptive part of a conversation. I know exactly what she
is looking for, and I know exactly what she isn't finding. "See this?" she
finally asks, pointing to the interior of the root. "This should blind you.
When I was a girl, you couldn't touch fresh turmeric without your fingers
staying orange for three days. My mother used to scold me for staining my
school uniform, and no amount of soap could hide the evidence of a good
harvest. Now, it washes off with water. It's like cheap paint applied to a
tired wall."
She lets the pieces fall onto the bamboo mat where they settle into a heap of
dull ochre — the color of weak tea or sun-bleached cardboard, not the blazing,
sunset-orange that once made Koraput turmeric legendary among spice traders
from Kerala to Kolkata.
We are in the remote tribal district of Koraput, Odisha, a place where the
Eastern Ghats fold into themselves like a green, weathered fist. To a tourist
or a casual traveler, the scene is a postcard of "Incredible India": emerald
hills, mist curling through ancient sal forests, and a brass tumbler of locally
grown coffee steaming between Basanti's calloused, earth-stained hands. But
Basanti, a fifty-year-old matriarch of the Paroja tribe, isn't admiring the
view. She is watching her world drain of color, one harvest at a time. And as
someone who has spent twelve years tracking the intersection of soil and
survival, I can tell you: the science confirms her heartbreak.”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
