I'd much prefer them to appear later. There is a time and place for everything.
Memories associated with the fruit have stayed - as a kid when the fruit would be bought, not in crates off a store, but when the lady from Surat descended with a huge basket. I still remember her dimpled smile and the peculiar Gujarati lingo she spoke in. She would sit in the living room on the floor, wipe her sweaty face with the end of her saree and force us to buy dozens of the fruit.
She would smartly place the large luscious ones at the top and then challenge us to cut open and see how sweet they were. After the mandatory haggling, she would leave. This charade went on for years.
Everyday, the quota would be put in a big vessel of cold water as there would not be enough room in the fridge. Of course, Mumbai snobbery has always maintained that alphonso mangoes are the best.
They would be cut into slices. For some reason, I would want the gutli (seed), and due to the messiness involved with its eatingI would end up with quite a few from other plates.
It is still the first thing I eat. There is something fascinating as one bites into soft flesh and touches the hard seed inside; then, the sides are polished off and finally you see the bare bones with orange 'threads' sticking out.
No doubt the colour and the fragrance of mangoes is a visual delight, but for one who is more a chikkoo and fig person it is the seed that enamours.
Remember that saying, "Aam khaaney se matlab, gutli se kya lena"?
For me the seed is the key. It is what produces more of the fruit after that one fruit or hundreds of them are eaten and disappear from the face of the earth.
It is good to cherish what we get, but even more important it is to value what we have and to take it further.
Another old saying talks about how no one throws stones at barren trees. It has got to be laden with fruit for it to be enticing and interesting enough for anyone to trouble themselves with pelting it. The irony is that what they bring down is what they wish to partake of, for only fools would merely hurl stones.
The fruit may end up muddied, it will be sliced, it will add to someone's table...but its seed will only result in growth.
Besides, who can tamper with roots?
- - -
"himmat buland hai apni
patthar si jaan rakhte hain
qadmon tale zameen to kya
hum aasmaan rakhte hain
girate huon ko uthaane ke liye
tu ji ai dil, zamaane ke liye
apne liye jiye to kya jiye"
---
This post appeared two years ago...
5 comments:
I don't usually prefer the 'seed slice' because it is a little more sour.. (seedy as this may sound) are there mangoes that are as sweet the deeper you go as when u begin?
By the way, in Bangalore there is still at least one lady with a tokri who comes with mangoes from some other town or state.. her fruits are much cheaper and tastier than the ones you get in the market..
Mangoes make me emotional. Just reading this post made my pulse pick up!
We had mango parties where we'd leave those small ones in buckets of ice chips before sucking them. Past tense because at some point they stopped. And there used to be a mango tree in the school playground, though there were never actually any mangoes since we'd pick ‘em all when they were still unripe.
An old aunt from the village used to send them to everyone. But then she moved to Canada- she was an old fossil!- and mangoes from the market...taste...of...acid...
Atul:
I believe the larger ones, often used to make aam-ras, probably get sweeter as you go towards the seed.
In Mumbai, we do hear sounds of the hawkers, but now vendors have cellphones and a call away!
Mask:
Ah, now you owe me one...
And why past tense...did the mangoes disappear or did you stop sucking them?
How did you eat the unripe mangoes? With red chilli powder and salt sprinkled on the slices?
As for Canada walli aunt...eik tau she sent you all those fruits and now you call her an old fossil...pataa nahin what-what you will tell about me :) Dat is why I will not ever move to Kanda...
One what? Mango? Nothing doing :]
Coulnd't get much of either in school, so it'd be just the fruit, but yes it is usually eaten that way.
And the aunt :] Old fossil in only the strictest sense- touching 70, I think she must be. Warna, she was coolio. Apart from the fruit, she'd send people paintings she'd made- for no reason other than generosity. Some maulvi scared her off art once, and she didn't take it up again till she was fifty. Very anti-maulvi she was then.
See? I tell the good stuff too :]
Just think I am your aunt...k? I am coolio, too.
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