The Fantastical Fruit

On the drive to Banni, in Kutch, was the first time I was introduced to these sprawling creepers with light yellow flowers and really small spiky fruits growing all along the side of the road. Nihalbhai stopped the car and showed them to me, telling me that they were jungli karela – wild bitter gourd. Through the rest of the trip, we kept seeing these creepers all over the place.

When raw, they are “kadva jeher jeva” – bitter as poison, Nihalbhai told me, but they make a delicious shaak. I collected some, brought them back with me, and tried out the shaak. More bitter than regular bitter gourd, but YUM!

jungli karela vs. regular karela

When they ripen, they turn a brilliant vermillion, with magnificent scarlet seeds inside! I could not get enough of that colour. How could I? Just look at it!!

Nihalbhai told me that the ripe fruits can be eaten raw, and he used to eat loads of them with his friends when he was young. You take the seeds, suck on them till you’ve eaten all the tender flesh on their surface, and then spit the pips out. I decided to try some. They were mildly sweet with a subtle melon-y flavor… quite delightful! In fact, I was so delighted by them that wherever I saw them I would first just marvel at their colour for a few minutes, and then pop the seeds into my mouth :P

I often noticed that several of the ripe fruits on the plants were open, so I thought that birds must have pecked them open to eat the seeds. The purpose of its brilliant colours is, after all, to attract birds and thereby assist in seed dispersal.

But this fruit also has a very fascination mechanism for this purpose: when fully ripe, its outer skin is delicately held together by a mesh of fragile fibers, and even the slightest agitation, the smallest touch, makes the fruit open up -- like an instantly blooming flower -- to revealing the bright glistening seeds inside!

It went a little out of focus.. :(

It was one of the most exciting things I saw there, definitely worthy of a special mention :D