Mangalore Bonda Sharbat Recipe | Tender Coconut Lemonade

Learn how to make Mangalore Bonda Sharbat ~ Tender coconut sherbet or tender coconut lemonade

“Echara, we want some bonda. Please!” pleaded a girl with two missing front teeth and two pigtails bouncing as she jumped up and down with her sister and cousins.

“Let me first finish peeling these arecanuts, and then I will get you kids the tender coconuts”, said Eshwara.

“No, we want you to come with us right now. We are very, very thirsty”, said all the kids in unison.

“There is no escaping from you little brats”, said Eshwara as he smiled indulgently.

He got up from the low seat of wooden plank with a blunt moon shaped knife designed especially for peeling the skin of arecanuts. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the towel tied around his head as a turban called mundaas, once red when it was new and now turned a shade of burnt rust after many washes, he flexed his five feet short body and joined us as we bounced along a narrow footpath around grandma’s ancestral two-storey art deco styled house with huge panelled windows.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... High FIVE!

Dear Lil Dumpling,

You will be 5 in few days. One, two, three, four, five! 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5! All those five fingers of your not so little hands. Whichever way I count or how many times I count, it’s the same. 5 years old! Why are you in such a hurry to grow up so fast? Can we slow down a little bit? A wee bit? Pretty please!

I know I say the same thing every year, but its true isn’t it? You rather seem to be in a hurry to grow up and I just want to pause the ticking of clock. At this time of the year your Appa and I can’t help but talk about the time you were born. We recall the day when I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance all alone while your dad followed like a mad man behind the wheels. My well researched and hand typed birth plan which took most part of 7 months was torn to pieces as your dad signed the form for emergency C-section. I was scared at the last minute changes to my perfect pregnancy period as it abruptly came to an end. The fear so powerful that it made me breathless took over as I prayed for the safe delivery of a bub whom I loved more than myself. The doctors and the nurses assured me and told me not to worry, but it was the worry lurking in your dad’s eyes that made me take a deep breath and smile reassuringly at him. But the anticipation of meeting you, the one who moved, rolled, kicked and somersaulted in my belly for all of 9 months and one day was something I have never experienced before.