Late August and early September, rains are sometimes called moga pavs in Goa. Literally this means “rains of love”, but my farmer friend explained an additional agricultural connection: “It is a very soothing and calm rain for plants and even humans.” June-July rains have damaging intensity, but these later showers embrace the plants.
With moist soil and spells of bright sun, it is the perfect time to plant vegetable and fruit seeds . Rice for the kharif crop is planted earlier, since it flourishes in flooded fields, but now the shoots are vivid green, a reminder that this is a growing season. The festivals in this season celebrate growth.
Rishi Panchami, which is today, is marked in Western India with a dish made of seasonal leaves and vegetables like those the sages might have foraged from jungles. Onam has its carpet made with freshly plucked flower petals and leaves. Ganesh Chaturthi in Goa has the matoli tradition — where a canopy of seasonal fruits and leaves, many gathered from the wild, is suspended over the Ganesh idol.
There are also the modaks made specially for Ganesh Chaturthi. In their classic form of a rice dough dumpling filled with a sweet coconut mixture, they are an unusual sweet. Steamed, chewy and slightly austere, they are quite different from the intensely rich, fried or fudgy Indian sweets more commonly consumed through the year.
Few people, I feel, would claim modaks as their favourite sweets, which might be why mithaiwalas increasingly make.