My first Irish Vishukkani, and its pains & pleasures!

I really didn’t realise that Vishu(the most important agricultural new year for Keralites), was on 15, till my father reminded me about it on 14 April. Back at home, he always used to make ‘vishukkani’ and here, in Ireland, this was our first Vishu, and that too in our own new home! I had no idea where to start with. First of all from where am I supposed to get ‘kanikkonna’ ( a kind of bright-yellow flowers aka "Golden Shower Tree") which were the main thing used for vishukkani .

Then about vegetables! I couldn’t even think using parsnip, carrot, potato and lettuce as part of ‘vishukkani’!! In Kerala, we usually use jackfruit, banana (not the small ones, but larger ones!), mangoes with leaves, coconut cut into half or tender coconuts (‘karikku‘) along with malar and pori (i dont know its english names!) all placed in a long banana leaf!

But ‘kanikkonna’ flowers were the most important thing, in a vishukkani..

Kanikkonna, in Ireland!! That would be like trying to get tulips or daffodils in Kerala.

So, I thought that we would use the wild gorse flowers seen here, at this time of year. At least it almost looked like ‘kanikkonna’.

ahhhh … now came the biggest problem! Those innocent looking yellow gorse bushes are full of thorns with at least 2 inches long.

Anyway daffodils were almost out of season. And all the flower shops had only off-white flowers while we needed bright-yellow ones, and of course WITHOUT spending 20€ !!

So the wild, gorse flowers seemed the only option, left. But the thought of seeing 2 inch thorns as ‘kani’ made my husband wondering aloud “Does that mean that our new year life will be going to be filled with 2 inch thorns?” Now ‘that thought’ worried the hell out of me. Already my ‘disc’ and my health were in deep trouble. I really, really didn’t want more troubles in this new year!

So, I decided to put my college days ‘athappoo’ (floral arrangement for Onam) skills into action! Yea, I was always there to separate out flowers from their stems (but sure, they didn’t have 2 inch long thorns!!)

After two long hours and very thorn-pricked, almost bleeding sore fingers …..

can you see the length of the sharp thorns?

…and the final result???

OK, I used green apples, oranges , pomegranate and lemons…so what!?

I had a mango and a cucumber too (though it doesn’t look like one!)

Above all, I STILL had thornless ‘’vishukkani’ with gorse flowers…

And a husband to wake me up at 4 am , to close my eyes till I saw the the kani first and then to me give me a 20€ “kaineettam”, even though I first gave him a 1 euro coin.

And I could only thank God for such a blessed life and to pray that let this may last forever and ever.

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