Mahua Magic

I bit into a ripe Mahua flower (left), goaded on by eager women. It's the 'tribal grape' one said. The other added that it would be sweeter than jaggery. The experience definitely was bitter-sweet. The intoxicating smell of the Mahua flowers carried through the wind to my expectant nose, promising more than it could deliver. The women harvest around 10 quintals of Mahua a season and earn Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 by selling the dried Mahua flowers (centre). They save some for their own consumption. They explained how they make sweets with it and how they add it to the vegetables they cook. A man was more forthcoming. "Do you know when there was no food to eat, we would consume the wine made from Mahua and work tirelessly?" he said. The others insisted that they did not make any alcohol with it. This may be because I was accompanied by someone who bit into the Mahua flower and wrinkled her nose saying it tasted of alcohol. It's interesting how narrative and knowledge shapes our senses and our experience of things. Thus Mahua 'tastes' like alcohol even for someone who has probably never consumed alcohol. Because alcohol is commonly made from it and is seen as taboo. Someone whose experience of alcohol is through films, would probably have a whiff of alcohol and start swooning, because that's is the commonly Bollywood-certified response to alcohol. Most tribal communities these days do not openly admit to making alcohol from Mahua. They would rather keep it a cultural secret than talk about it and have it disparaged in public by 'outsiders'. Often civil society projects end up vilifying any consumption of alcohol as a blanket crime. The cultural significance is thus marauded and shamed until even the children of these communities internalise the criminality of drinking and proclaim taking action against alcohol consumption with pride. It goes to add a moral reputation to alcohol consumption, not addressing other dimensions of why alcohol is consumed, why it may lead to violence, why excessive consumption can impact many things, including health and well-being. This is done through a careful juxtaposition of alcohol consumption and domestic violence. Often, going into the root cause of domestic violence can lead to uncomfortable questions, upending status quos and open social wounds that cannot be closed. Is it all the Mahua talking? Or the deep dissatisfaction with the way some questions are repeatedly broached and addressed regardless of geography, community, or custom? One wonders, but for those few minutes, the Mahua magic brought me together with the women of a small tribal hamlet somewhere in Odisha.