Life and Times of the Coconut Paneer Barfi

My blogger and FB friend Shruti Nargundkar of Melbourne,  has a wonderful food related blog, where she often intertwines her childhood memories and ethos  of the cooking , and creates wonderful pictures .

She recently posted  something about a coconut paneer barfi , something to be made on the Rakhi Poornima/Coconut Day celebrations, when sisters tie Rakhis to brothers (see foreground of the plate), and fishermen offer coconuts to the Sea , in gratitude and worship.

It is often fun to attribute a life to all the ingredients.

I tried. Originally in Marathi, the King'(Shivaji)'s Language .  Then , an effort in what is called, the Queen's.

पोर्णिमेच समुद्रस्नान चकवून
घरी आलेला तो नारळ ,
स्वताहाच्या अश्रूंमध्ये बुडलेली
त्याची बहीण साखर ,
 राखीचा सोहळा
बघायला आलेल्या पनीरला
आग्रहाने बोलावतात ,
आणि
इलायची इलायची  खूप खेळल्यावर ,
ओलसर उबेत चिंब भिजल्यावर,
दुधाच्या कोरड्या पंचाने
पिठी साखरेच्यासह पुसून
एका मउ गुळगुळीत ठिकाणी
सगळे आरामात  पहुडतात .....

आणि कधीतरी
सोनेरी क्षणात ,
निरांजानासाम्वेत ,
ताम्हनात बसून
कोणा एका हसर्या चेहर्या समोर
शेवटची गिरकी मारून
आत्मसमर्पण .......

तसे क्षणभंगुर ,
पण किती परोपकारी  हे
बर्फीचे आयुष्य  !


A run-away coconut,
playing truant
from the
Fishermens' Full Moon Festival
offering to the sea;
Lady Sugar,
immersed
in her own syrupy happy tears,
and they invite
Paneer Kumar
to join in the celebrations....

Wild games of Cardamom-Cardamon,
all stirred up
and warmly entangled
in excitement,
they rest,
tired,
in a cool place
after
a wrap and scrub of
some tough dry
no nonsense
milk and sugar....

And then
in one golden moment,
of the puja thali,
the final flare
of a glowing sweet life,
as they
slowly circle
around a happy brother's face,
only
to offer their lives,
to see joyful faces
around them.

A short life this,
but what a giving one .....