Poovamma grows paringe mollu — bird-eye chilli, Capsicum annuum, the small fierce ones that Kodava kitchens keep in a jar by the stove and drop whole into pork, fish, and eggs. Her plot sits behind a house on the Madikeri side, looking toward the ghats, a tangle of thin stems and fruit the colour of lacquer.
She picks them ripe, dries them on a mat in the courtyard, and pounds them on a small stone of her own. The powder is bright, not brick-red, and the heat is sharp and high rather than slow and muddy. A pinch will wake a dal. A teaspoon will stand up to fatty meat.
Bird-eye chilli is ordinary in Coorg and almost invisible in the rest of the country. It does not have a brand. It has a garden. Poovamma's garden is the reason this jar exists.
We pay her for the fruit and for the labour of drying and pounding. The powder is hers. The story is hers. We are the ones who carry it out of the district.
The ritual. Picked at full red, dried three days in sun and two in shade, pounded only when the skin snaps cleanly.
