It's time for dates again!

Dates - Miracle Fruit - Mighty Food!

What a miracle! That's how I feel seeing dates grow and ripen every year! It's a great feeling!

Come January, and in the middle eastern countries, you find the date palms in inflorescence, and over a period of 2 months the tiny petals wither away and bunches of green fruits appear.  They start off with the most pleasant time and gradually move into the hot summers of the desert region, where you are literally on the furnace! It’s the reverse of the axiomatic experience of from 'frying pan to fire' - rather it is a transition from the paradise to hell-fire.  But it is this fiery experience that converts the tiny green berries to golden yellow, deep red, yellowish brown, green-brown and reddish yellow dates. This is the miracle of the desert, producing refined, relishable, refreshing sweetness out of the bitter struggle with the nature's extremes!

And when summer peaks in July, it's time for harvest.  When everyone hides behind shades, humans avoid the day time for work, when the sturdy green tropical plants get their fingers literally burnt (their leaves and tips of their branches dry and curl up indicating the intensity of heat), the Phoenix dactylifera stand erect, verdant and steady, defying all odds, and bearing fruits abundant and colourful. 

This time, the date festival has arrived as usual in Doha.  The Souq Waqif that attracts visitors with its attractively laid lanes and shops in the traditional Arabic fashion, but with all modern amenities.  The traditional wares, food, clothing all are available there.  A model for a traditional market to be presented for the modern-day consumers.  (I had indicated to our beloved Mayor, that we take some cues from all this in reimagining Kochi).  And in the open area of the Souq, a huge tent raised ad hoc, houses the date fest. 

Dates are laid in decoration welcoming the guests.  I was happy for this, that the typical plastic-paper-thermocol decorations were totally absent. There is hardly anything other than dates. More than 60 stalls present dates - mostly from Qatari farms - hence, the dates are fresh, but the diversity appear less.  

Innovative technology is catching up with dates as well - The dates syrup is said to be traditional.  But date cakes, dates ice-cream, dates shake, date cookies, tarts, date-flavoured yogurt...appear to be innovation in the domain of dates. There are some attempts at pickles too.  But for the Malayalee, now quite familiar with dates pickle after the mallu fashion, all this would appear, child's play as far pickling is concerned.  Perhaps, an innovation is that of dates-coffee - rather, date seeds fried & ground as a substitute for coffee!

The visitors are invited to test and taste the dates on display, and to make their choice to buy.  Shishi appear top on the list for taste and price - to the untrained Malayalee eyes, they would appear spoilt stuff - half green, and the top half appearing almost as if decay has set in.  But in the mouth they give a mix of soft and hard tissues very sweet on the one end and the rest on its course of becoming creamy sweet!

This time our encounter was with Khenaizi (reddish mildly sweet), Shishi (green - turning light brown when ripe, and very sweet), Misri (almost 2 inches long, reddish turning dark brown when ripe), Barhid (yellow like some yellow coconut), Lulu (yellow and smaller in size than Barhid) Raseez (or Laseez?) and Khalaas. I still have to make a round to learn about them better. 

One stall had a huge tray real black beauties - Laseez? - not meant for sale, but for the visitors to taste. Wow! It literally melted at the tip of the tongue! With a round of the stalls, and testing/tasting from most of them, we were heavily burdened and realised that most likely we would have to go without dinner to be fair to our machines!  Dates are not washed, and those who man the stalls would add their fingerprints additionally in the friendly gesture of offering you their specimens to test by tasting. However, after the day's round of dates the next day, the three of us were quite ok.  Either such outings add to your immunity or these finger prints are perhaps clean!!

The good thing about the festival is the friendly approach by the vendors, but the bad thing is about the festival being very minimally informative or adding to knowledge regarding dates as such. Even the vendors themselves, mostly Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who represent their farms, are very minimally knowledgeable about the varieties they were presenting. 

Time for prayer - a space is set apart for that, and while business as usual went around, the more religious among the men have no hesitation to come forward, line up in the trained disciplined manner, and remember the Almighty, the merciful and compassionate! the Lord of dates as well! This aspect of Islamic faith is commendable, and at prayer, I noticed that there is no feeling of high or low, modern or rustic - all stand in shoulder to shoulder, all follow the simple structure of Islamic prayer - the same prayer, the same language, irrespective of nationalities and linguistic differences.  This is a great binding factor. Hope that spreads beyond the faith community as well!