Beat the heat with

Sellers in the city are having a field day as temperature soars

coolants to beat the heat. Kumar’s is among the several shops in the city that have been selling nongu juice/sharbat when the mercury soars.

Customised drink

You can have it plain – the flesh scooped out of the nongu shell is whisked so that you can have the juice and the chunks with or without sugar. A favourite is plain juice flavoured with a sharbat. “We also have fruit sharbat with nongu and cut fruits added to it — pineapple, apple, grapes, banana etc,” Kumar says, adding that he has been in this business for over three decades now.

The fruit has been the mainstay of their lives for Sivamohan S and son Pramod Mohan, who run Devi Juice at East Fort since the ‘70s. “We don’t add any other fruit or syrup. Elderly people enjoy it like that while youngsters want it sweet,” says Pramod.

The juice with khus khus is a favourite variety and the goto place for this is Killippalam Special Nongu Sarbath, near the Bund Road leading to Attukal Temple, points out Rajan K Nair, a regular customer of the shop.

“I have been coming here since my school days. We would walk all the way from SMV School, some two kilometres, just to have the juice. Now I am 55 and I still come here whenever I can,” says Rajan.

The shop sells nongu juice blended with naruneendi (sarsaparilla) syrup and nongupineapple combination.

vendors do brisk business during summer, selling the fruit and juice.

“Ours is, perhaps, the oldest shop in this business and we have been doing this for nearly 100 years now,” says Rajesh Kumar, who manages the shop with his son, Vishnu R.

The fruit, besides being high on water content, is rich in vitamins and potassium and low on calories. “Those who contract chicken pox often buy it as it is believed to be good for the body,” says Jayakumari, an employee at the shop for 25 years.

The city also has several makeshift outlets shops selling nongu juice, like the one at Pippinmood, run by the brand,

Palm World, since 2013. “Besides

nongu juice, there is palm pine

(nongupineapple combination) and fruit mix, which has nongu with bananas, pomegranate (seasonal), pineapple, cardamom and nuts sautéed in ghee. All products are made at our unit at Pamangod near Pappanamcode,” says Ajith Kumar K, who runs Palm World.

Ajith supplies the drink to similar outlets at Jagathy, Poojappura, Neyyattinkara, Oolampara, Statue and Fort besides certain juice shops. “Instead of syrup or sugar we use palm jaggery,” he says. They also sell the fruit at ₹30 per piece.

The fruit comes to the city from Tamil Nadu. “Now we get the fruit from Nagercoil, Panakudi and Urambu. After that the load will arrive from Thiruchendur and Thenkasi. Following that, we get the fruit from Palakkad,” Ajith says. There has been a shortage of the fruit because of high demand. Meanwhile, the juice has become pricey over the years.

“It costs ₹60 to ₹100 per glass. There was a time when a glass of juice cost just 50 paisa, that too for triple the present quantity,” says Sivamohan. It seems, nongu is killing it this summer as well!

SIVAMOHAN S

Nongu