And now finally it’s time to bid adieu to the long winter and welcome the most restful time of the year, the one filled with positive vibes and childhood nostalgia. The days are growing longer, the sun is shining brighter. We finally made it through that long, dark, post-Christmas winter months, only to find ourselves stuck inside for most of spring.
Summers that I have experienced growing up in North Indian plains were quite different from other parts of the country. Usually, it would be more intense, the blazing sun causing heat waves on the road; small rivers run dry, the parched earth awaiting the first shower of the monsoon.
But summer, while I was growing up was also a lot about mangoes. Ripe, sweet mangoes that dripped juices down your throat, down your neck, and then comes the best part, sucking up the sticky stone which turns out to be slight messy affair, but much gratifying.
My obsession for mangoes makes me wait eagerly for summer and finally when I got my hands on one, its mango in its pristine avatar, post breakfast, lunch & dinner. However few mornings would be greeted with vegan & SCD mango smoothie for two very well-behaved fussy eaters who sometimes decide to take refuge of the tantrums. Fresh mango pulp, any nut-based milk or coconut milk, some honey if you like your smoothie extra sweet, all whipped together for a couple of seconds and you have a most creamy, refreshing, sun-shine yellow drink ready to be devoured.
The smell of a ripe mango would still evoke my taste buds, my memories, and for a while I would be a child again and it would be a hot summer day in India. But, alas, even before I could fill my soul with the essence of this king of fruit, to last a year, it’s gone!
A series of images comes rushing back like a tidal wave. Vendors sitting beside the road behind the straw baskets full of mangoes, covered with green leaves, either selling their own produce or an early morning purchase from the farmers in the nearby villages. There is an overpowering smell of mangoes lingering in the surrounding.
A woman maybe in her late sixties, sitting in a muddy green sari with two huge baskets of mango, her head covered and she’s trying to fan herself with an old newspaper. The wrinkles on her face and hand are a testimony to the hardships and the days spent under the relentless sun selling fresh produce whatever was in season. Sometimes she also stops by our home on the way to offer the fresh goodies of the day before it reaches market. Conversations flow over a cup of tea or sometimes just plain water, gently weaving unseen bonding between the two of us!!
