I feel some kind of second-hand sadness
in the summers,
for those who have never tasted mangoes.
I’m not speaking of the ones you bought today,
or yesterday, or last week, or last year,
or the year before that,
but of the mangoes that were once eaten warm.
Slightly bruised, very yellow.
Recklessly dripping with juice.
They wouldn’t wait for you
to be able to eat them decently.
Mangoes that were mostly found in May and June,
and a little bit of July.
The sweet ones.
Not the ones that are impatiently dragged to April
and shamelessly stretched until August.
These mangoes…
you would barely point a knife at one,
and the juice would be trickling down your elbow,
which you would then have to tactfully lick.
Once when I was seven (I think),
I sat down in the most weightless one piece I had,
a summer banyan,
and felt adrenaline rush through me
when big vessels full of Cheruku Rasam
and Pedda Rasam pulp,
were being disgorged into our plates
already occupied by an enormous puddle of curd.
The Cheruku Rasam and Pedda Rasam
could be harvested only for a little over a month.
So, until the end of summer,
I would hurry every day,
to be seated first for my maamidi rasam
in my flimsy cotton banyan.
(considered quite inappropriate in the village
for a seven year-old girl, at the time)
I then thought that this vessel full of pulp
came from one mango.
I still think so.
Fact-checking this might be disappointing.
I never learned the art of eating the Cheruku Rasam.
My white vest would always be stained
and my tongue would be struggling
to reach my elbow.
But, I think that’s how it is supposed to be eaten.
Fact-checking this might be disappointing.
The Banganapalli – unlike the Cheruku Rasam – lasted much longer.
It was the more sophisticated of the lot.
The kind you needn’t wear rags for.
It could be cut into neat pieces, or,
like my grandfather taught me,
scooped out with a spoon.
When the mango vendor announced his arrival,
I would run out to pick the best pieces.
At seven, I could smell the sweetest mangoes.
Not sure I can do that now.
The mangoes don’t do that either.
I sadly think it is the latter.
I always called the Banganpalli, Banganpalli
and the Cheruku Rasam, Cheruku Rasam.
You musn’t obliviate the first name of a Mango.
That is the big blasphemy.
That is how we have lost half of them.
In fact, I once sowed a small Ratnagiri
in my grandfather’s front yard
and watched it become a tree.
I tell you, you must taste a Ratnagiri
you have grown,
or any mango for that matter,
so you never forget its unlikeness.
The mangoes have gone sour these days.
That’s what happens
when you disregard their idiosyncrasies
and reduce them to their patronym,
as if they have no identities of their own.
I hear Banganpalli has reached Delhi now.
The Ratnagiri too.
The Cheruku Rasam wanted to,
but its argument could not hold water.
Neither could its skin.
Think again.
Have you tasted mangoes?
Have you eaten a warm Cheruku Rasam,
from the east Godavari district,
with cold full-cream curd,
in your flimsiest cotton banyan?
Do it before this one also exits the orchards.
Do it and you might come by the wisdom
of a seven-year-old girl.
Translations and detailed descriptions are provided to give a better understanding of the story to people from different cultural backgrounds across the globe.