[I am thankful to Prof.Satish C. Bhatnagar who has assigned me to post this 'Reflection' of his to the Forum on his behalf. Please read on... , reflect and react. Your comments are welcome.]

This morning I spent a couple of hours with my bushy type pomegranate tree; touching it, clipping it, and plucking down the fruit one by one, as the ripening period had passed.

It is essentially manicuring it, done once a year. Pomegranate trees defy normal pruning. Planted fifteen years ago, it also provides a botanical continuity with the one planted in another house we lived till 1994. Incidentally, that is thriving too, as I see its taller shoots while driving by it once in a while. The cold and dry climate of Las Vegas is great for the pomegranate, but not its rocky soil. However, with only a few buckets of 'foreign' top soil, they just flourish.

That is also a story of nearly 90% of its residents moving here from all over the world. Just a little helping hand turns a life around. Las Vegas has the largest variety in ethnic population in the country, partly, because it is a designated asylum city of the US.

The tree, with its last batch of fruits, almost had been beckoning me to lighten it. Fall season is a geriatric phase of the trees. The leaves, changing from green to yellow, are giving a mini spectacle of the fall season right in our backyard. In fact, another tree, of unknown kind, has turned reddish leaves on its canopy hovering over the roof of our gazebo. Since the winter sun around 11 AM is perfect for soaking sun rays needed to turn on the vitamin D producing gland, it doubled my joy while taking care of the pomegranate tree.

Our pomegranate tree is not very large, but its yearly crop is usually bumper. We are only two in the home, but our extended family is large. But no one cares about these fruits, though VON sells the organic kind for $3 apiece. We give out to friends, neighbors and colleagues.

It is not an act of large heartedness, as the fruits will rot after a few days creating stench in the house. It is amazing to see this Principle of Over-Production in action. For instance, a seed of corn can multiply into zillion seeds. It appears ‘family planning’ is not a natural selection. Nature thrives on waste too. That is how a balance is struck out.

Historically speaking, Babar had the pomegranate plants brought from Kabul after he had taken control of Delhi and surrounding region, in 1525. My memories of pomegranate go back to almost 60 years while growing up in Bathinda. For reason of local food habits and expensive fruit prices, they were literally not available and sold then. The best variety still grows in Eastern Afghanistan and around Kabul. Apart from soil and weather of this region, gallons of blood is poured into its roots system during planting and afterwards. The blood is collected when the necks of the goats and lambs are slowly knifed out according to strict Islamic injunctions, draining all the blood out of the body. There is going to be lot of blood, when kabob is for breakfast, kabob for lunch, and kabob for dinner. This scenario is fully captured in a recent Indian movie, Road to Kabul.

A saying, AIK ANAAR, AUR SO BEMAAR" is very popular in Pakistan and North India. It means there is only one pomegranate fruit for 100 sick persons. Yes, fruits were a kind of substitutes for medicines. After all, at micro-chemical level, they are same. Naturopathy and poverty go hand in hand. It is a great lesson for the US health care problems. But during 1940’s, few could afford to buy fruits in the deserty Bathinda then.

I remember my maternal grandfather bringing two huge baskets of fruits and scarce vegetables after collecting his pension from Delhi. He had retired from the CPWD, the only civilian government office during the British occupation of India till 1947.

Today, there were two dozen pomegranates scatteringly hanging around. Half of them were near empty shells or cracked wide open from inner pressures. The tiny birds and pigeons enjoy their seeds that the humans generally avoid them! Taking a handful of pulpy nuggets in the mouth and after sucking the juice, I continue chewing the seeds till the paste feels no more 'good’. It is spit out. Without doubt, the human stomachs are far weaker than that of the tiny birds, when it comes to ingesting the seeds!

My wife and some family members are likely to eat the pomegranates, if its pulpy seeds are taken out. The pomegranate shell is very hard, though thin. I apply four longitudinal cuts for breaking into four pieces. The sight of the embedded seeds is the best example of packing. The packing theory in mathematics has wide applications, as all kind of objects are constantly shipped in trucks and planes all over the world. To test its efficiency, I found that once all the pulpy seeds are taken out of the shell, then the volume freely occupied by pulpy seeds is nearly three times that of the pomegranate!
Well, the peeling work is done by hands in taking the embedded granules out by bending and breaking the shell. That is neither an easy job, nor a clean one, as the juice flies out in tinny squirts. It is strictly an outdoor activity for the safely of furniture etc.

I remember my mother drying these shells and giving its powder with honey for suppressing bad coughs. In fact, the soft dividing filaments, in the shell, are curative too. Just for the sake of general restoration and de-toxification of the cells, I unhesitatingly chew them along with the seeds. They are tasteless.

The most amazing sight in picking and peeling is of the bugs crawling inside the cracked open pomegranates. Relatively, they have large legs, and their pink and reddish brown colors blend with wetly pulpy seeds inside. It is a law of nature. For instance, the pigment colors of human skins can be explained by their environment. The termites are known to eat away any hard wood. These little antsy bugs eat away every bit of pomegranate from its seeds to hard shell.

A question arises as to where do these bugsties come from? The answer lies in The Principle of Oneness; no distinction between living and non-living! Tinier the cracks in the shell of the pomegranate, tinier are these bugs to begin with; hardly visible to the naked eyes. The bugs are the transformations of the inner juicy matter when it chemically reacts with outside air at a right moment. Life is a manifestation of complex amino-acids. Where is a/the soul?

Well, any one sufering from paranoia of bacteria may not eat anything, if over-ripe vegetables, fruits, dairy products and meats are put under a powerful microscope. Defining living in terms of visible motion or even in terms of a direct sensory experience is the height of scientific ignorance. Thanks pomegranates for the re-affirmations, insights and delights!

Satish Chandra
Nov 08, 2009