Cheezbilai or Junglee Jalebi

Just at dawn, on our walk, we discovered a flock of plum headed parakeets fly from one tree and rest on an adjacent branch and peck at something. They did that repeatedly and then one parakeet dropped something. And guess what we found: cheezbilai!

I guess everyone has fond memories of eating ripened cheezbilai or junglee jalebi when we were kids. These weren’t the ripe pink ones yet. But I tried to find out more names for this. This is called the monkey pod, vilayati imli or kodikkai (Tamil). Pithecellobium dulce is the scientific name and incidentally the tree has medicinal value. The bark and the pulp have astringent and hemostatic properties. Now that’s your botany lesson for the day!