The Mangoes of my Childhood

This is a longish ramble through a slice of my childhood. So, get yourself a cup of coffee or tea, relax, take your time, and I hope you enjoy the tour.

I grew up surrounded by sprawling gardens with trees, shrubs, creepers – nameless plants of every kind bearing flowers and fruits of myriad hue. We lived in tiny coal-mining towns - Kothagudem, Bellampalli, Ramagundam - situated in Adilabad and Khammam districts, in the state of Andhra Pradesh - shifting from one place to the other as and when we were transferred. Here, I’m describing a bungalow where we spent many years – though the bungalows in the other places were quite similar. Singareni Collieries, the coal mining company, was set up by the British, and when they left, taken over by Indian management, comprising mainly of mining engineers, of which my father was one.

Every once in a while my father and brother – not really genuine gardening buffs – got into planting fits. They generally attacked the usually fallow vegetable patch, behind the bungalow - which was the living quarters of the officers, and hence home for us. And so, our dining table would suddenly begin groaning under kilo-fulls of lady fingers – the plants grew easily and fruited abundantly; strange button sized, ruby red, tomatoes, that were succulent and sweet to taste; fat, purple brinjals, which when fried crisp brown, turned butter soft inside – delicious when eaten with steaming hot rice and dal, into which a few drops of tangy lime juice would be squeezed.

The limes came green and fresh from the unruly thicket that grew near the compound wall. Beside which grew the papaya trees whose bulbous green skinned fruit often burst open in the summer heat, revealing their fleshy orange soul, pitted with gelatinous black seeds that looked like the frogs’ eggs that the frogs laid in the cement tanks. These cement tanks were built to store water that was let out in rivulets of shallow furrows dug in the earth that led to all the different parts of the garden. Especially the corner where the copse of banana plants waved their broad emerald-green leaves in passing winds. These were thirsty plants, my father explained, they needed plenty of water to quench their thirst. The fruit they bore in hanging bunches were sun yellow coloured, not much larger than my childish fist, in which I held many a peeled fruit – sugar sweet to taste.

The coconut palms that grew in a row were really ornamental; we couldn’t eat the loads of fruit that came down with loud crashing thumps when they ripened. The garden was hedged with henna, the leaves of which I would painstakingly collect and crush on the grinding stone in the kitchen and smear into intricate patterns on my hands. The rusty stains would remain for days which I would proudly display to my generally unenthusiastic family.

The neem tree in one corner of the garden spread big and wide, the little berry like bitter fruit lay strewn like yellow droplets of paint on the ground, untouched by the crows, parrots, doves, pigeons, mynahs, sparrows that flew and hopped about, rending the air with their caws, screeches, chirps, hums. The tamarind tree in another corner bore strings of sour brown tamarinds that you brought down with wild flings of chunky stones (by me) and well-aimed homemade catapults (by my brother). These were then dipped in salt, and licked and eaten with smacking sounds, the salty sourness peeling the skin in your mouth.

The large jamun tree that grew beside the dining room, sprouted luscious purple-black fruit that you put in a tin with a dash of salt, red chilli powder, and a few drops of mustard oil, covered and shook with all your might, then settled down under the shade of the gulmohar tree, to curl your tongue around each sweetish sourish chilli tinged mustardy salty soft fruit – your lips and tongue turning purple black – listening to the koel hidden in the branches wailing – Coo-oo Coo-oo – the earth crimson with the fallen flaming flowers.

There were plenty of smaller flowering plants too. The star like asters that grew in beds, the rows of marigold that burst into flower in daubs of brassy yellow, the sunflower patch where I spent many long hours on hot summer days, because I had been told that the heavy flower heads followed the sun’s path, and I wanted to see that in action. I never could make up my mind with certainty whether they really did, or it was only the breeze.

Then, there were the bright sprays of bougainvillea – magenta, fairy white, bronze-orange – that leaned against the trellises here and there. And roses of course. There were pink roses that flowered copiously and filled the garden with their heady scent, there were dusky red ones that bloomed in smaller numbers and stood in regal aloofness on their thick stalks, and the ones I loved the most, with peach-edged petals and yellow centres. The wasps, bumblebees, and dragonflies had long buzzing conversations amongst this profusion of petals, perfumes, and thorns, while the butterflies flitted and fluttered from flower to flower.

But beloved of all were the mango trees – about ten or twelve in all – each bearing a different variety of fruit. Each with distinctive size, shape, flavour, and colour. The mangoes that grew in our garden were not commercially available and so were mostly nameless. Come March, and the branches would be tipped by little whitish innocuous looking flowers. If you plucked a sprig and pressed your nose into it, you could smell the mango that was forming within its womb. As the sun grew hotter, the mangoes grew rounder and riper. The hotter the summer, the sweeter the mango – so went wise lore!

There was the little, fist sized, vermillion coloured tangy sweet Sinduri, which grew in copious bunches. Then there was the huge green variety, each fruit weighing about a kilo or so; they hung heavy, but few. The tree would yield about ten or twelve in a prolific season, usually you were lucky if you got six or seven. The pulp of these was softened by pressing and kneading the fruit – in my small childish hands, that was something like massaging a sumo wrestler!

Then, when suitably softened, the pustule, from which it had been attached to its stalk, would be nipped, and then mouth to fruit, you suckled at all the sweet, orange coloured thick pulp, which ran down your chin, into the front of your dress. Or, you made your mother squeeze the mash into a dish, add a dollop of cream, put in the freezer, and hey presto, you had fresh mango ice-cream! The fruit was so sweet, you didn’t need to add any sugar.

Then there was the variety which never ripened into yellow fruit, but remained hard, raw green outside, and white and sour inside. You plucked them by the basket full, washed, and laid them out in the sun, to dry the moisture. And then cut them into inch sized cubes, and pickled them inside huge jars, with oil into which would be mixed a pungent paste of red chillies and other tongue tingling condiments. The open jars, full of pickling mangoes, would then be set out in the blazing sun, and the air would be redolent with the aroma of spices, oil, and sour green mangoes slowly turning chilli red. You then got homemade mango pickle to eat with your rice and dal for the rest of the year.

There was also the table variety which you cut into slices and ate politely when you had guests for dinner, and it was served as dessert. Or, preferably, simply peeled and attacked with gusto, in succulent bites, the juice smearing your cheeks and chin, and your hands becoming slithery sticky. You kept at it until you came to the kernel, which you gnawed at until it was bone dry white.

Of course, you competed for the ripest and the most luscious fruits that grew in the inaccessible topmost branches, where marauding bands of monkeys cocked a snook at you as you looked up from way down below, burning with sweaty aggravation, while they sampled the best fruits, then impudently chucked half eaten fruit at you, in response to the ineffectual pieces of stones that you flung at them.

And not to forget the pesky mobs of screeching parrots that turned the sky green, when in their multitudes they converged in, into the mango trees. They could wipe out a tree in minutes. So, you joined in with full-throated glee in the blood curdling yells, and great banging of old tins, of the mali, the ayah, the cook, and the watchman, accompanied by the enthusiastic barking of Ginnie, the dog, to try and chase them away – to little avail.

The parrots never ate the whole fruit. They dug their sharp, curved beaks into one fruit now, and when bored, on to another fruit next, leaving behind pitted useless fruit, which rotted and fell. We got the leftovers from such dastardly looting and pillaging. But still, since it was only me my brother my sister my parents, and of course, the mali, the ayah, the cook, and the watchman, there really was always plenty to go around.

And summers meant mangoes as breakfast, mangoes at lunch, mangoes at dinner, mangoes when you were bored and wanted something to munch, mangoes at picnics, mangoes when you climbed trees to play hide and seek, mangoes when you came out dripping and famished from the swimming pool – mangoes mangoes mangoes – filled sun drenched days, their tangy smell mingling with the heady scent of the flowers of the night, the mogra, the jasmine, and the raat-ki-rani, wafting in on a summer breeze, stealing into your dreams at night.

And though those days have been left far behind now, and I have been replanted away from that soil, it is in the gardens of my childhood and youth, where I grew and bloomed, that my roots still remain. When it is summer now, and the days become hot ad searing, just right for the ripening of mangoes that I’m sure still grow there, I buy a kilo of fruit from the market and bite into the juicy flesh, and feel a strong tug at those old roots of my childhood and youth.

-by Rita Putatunda

3 a.m. Poem

It’s 3 a.m. My fevered brain
Is still unconscious but vaguely aware
Of a murmur –
Like flies buzzing on dead meat.

Then, like a butcher’s hatchet
Breaks open a skull
My eyes fly open in the dark.

A 3 a.m. dark crawling with tendrils of spider’s webs, coiled snakes, scurrying centipedes.
With a parched tongue, scorched belly, spewing entrails,
A poem, half formed is insisting on being born.

Why can’t it be at 3 p.m.? My half formed half born,
I wish you’d let me stay in my dreamless dream.

-Rita Putatunda

death ... life

death
hold back hold back
hide your dark face
within your fearsome shadows
halt your dreaded feet’s
unrelenting advance
towards my door
do not embrace me
in your hungry ardour

life
hold me hold me
hold on to me tight
do not let go of my hand
your arms have
grown unfeeling
your breasts have
run dry of life’s fever
still I cling still I cling
to your withered teats
with hungry ardour

-Rita Putatunda

The Gnarled Snail and the Windblown Rose

The windblown rose bloomed in a desolate corner of the garden.
The gnarled snail, bent with the burden of life, winding his way through the garden,
which burgeoned with many a beauteous flower and painted leaf of myriad hue,
chanced upon the windblown rose in the corner of the garden,
and he halted in his tracks, struck with wonder –
This little rose, that grew in this unkempt corner of the garden,
almost lost in the unruly tangle of weed and grass,
wafted a faint, but heady perfume; she bloomed with a rare rosy plume.
He crept up to her, keeping himself hidden from her face,
dragging his heavy shell on his bent back,
and looked at her windblown beauty in silent reverence.
He then dragged himself around and looked at her rosy face
with his heavy gaze. In his heart he knew at once,
the windblown rose was his, and his alone. To her heart
he decided to lay claim.
With gravel in his voice, a throb in his words, the snail
demanded of the rose her heart.

The windblown rose was startled out of her reverie.
So desolate had she been in all this time,
in that abandoned corner of the garden where she dwelt,
she had forgotten how to hear, how to know,
how to speak the language of love.
And here stood this bent, gnarled snail at her feet,
who spoke to her of love with his gravel voice so full of
the throb of his heart.

The silent longing in her heart wanted to break free
and cascade like a gushing waterfall to slake
the thirst of her soul.

But when she cast her eyes on the snail,
she was aghast – This creature, so bent, so gnarled with time,
Was making claim to her heart? To her soul? To her love?
She disdained the longing she saw in the eyes of the bent snail.
She scorned the throb she heard in the gravel voice of the bent snail.

She, the beauteous windblown rose, longed
For a beauteous prince who would
Sing paeans to her beauty with honeyed voice,
Fill her heart with a gaze overflowing with love’s sweet pining.

But, so lonesome was she, this beauteous windblown rose,
-- her prince had not come to sweep her in love’s joyous clamour,
though she had waited long --
to while away her time, until her real prince happened along,
she decided to play along with this, her suitor,
this bent, gnarled snail, with longing in his voice,
with throb in his voice, laying claim to her windblown heart.

So, in reply, to keep her lover in her thrall, she spun
webs of sweet words in skeins of silk.
To entrap him in the lure of her charms,
she swayed, she danced, she bloomed,
pirouetted and pranced in the beguiling breeze.
Using her enticing song as wings on her feet,
she swirled, she twirled, she whirled,
with carefree abandon.
Using her rapier skills of enticement,
she thrust her brilliant bounty
into the enraptured heart of the gnarled snail,
with a matador’s cruel skill --
-- to blood him -- to bring him to his knees --
to hide the ashes in her heart.

The snail, gnarled with time, bent with wisdom,
although mesmerized by his windblown rose’s charms,
knew in his heart that this display
of wondrous grace was but a charade.
While his windblown rose offered him
the make believe sweet affection of her rosy plume,
the blush of her deep heart she kept veiled.

With entreaty in his eyes, with imploring voice,
He beseeches, pleads, prays
to his windblown rose – to open her heart
to ignore his outer shell, gnarled and bent with time,
to instead look within his tender soul
that yearned for but a glance, a touch,
a single note of truth that would reveal
the unfeigned beauty of her, his windblown rose’s,
true heart.

The silent longing in her heart wanted to break free
and cascade like a gushing waterfall to slake
the thirst of her soul.

The windblown rose cast her gaze
once more on the snail – and all of a sudden
she knew, her heart knew – she saw beyond
the gnarled shell, she looked within his tender soul,
she heard at last the throb in his gravel voice,
she understood at last the longing in his heart.

But woebegone was she, the windblown rose,
her long desolation had hardened her heart.
Though feather soft bloomed her petals,
the sweet song of love had deserted her soul.
After the dry heat of the long summer months,
when the monsoon shower had come at last
to drench her with life anew, she knew
she had forgotten what words the cloud spoke to the rain,
how birds sang and made themselves understood,
how bees made love to the blushing flower.
She had forgotten how to speak the language of love.
She had only rapier words left churning
from the ashes of her burnt soul.

But the snail is adamant, stubborn, resolute.
He wants to teach his rose how to bloom, how to blush again –
Lugging his heavy shell he straightens his bent back,
and begins a slow waltz, crooning a love song.
First, a song sung in hushed voice,
to melt her heart, to soften her soul. And then,
with words of urgency, tinged with the sharp call of an eagle,
he seeks to quicken her sluggish pulse with stabbing need.

The silent longing in her heart wants to break free
and cascade like a gushing waterfall to slake
the thirst of her soul.

The windblown rose listens with a heavy heart
to the song sung by her love, the gnarled snail – a heart
that longed to utter the words that she had forgotten how to speak.
Instead, she withdraws with a piercing cry – she spews anew
feigned words with rapier thrust.
She knew no other language to speak her need.
She had only her sharp thorns – the thorns
left churning from the ashes of her burnt heart.

With an agonized cry the snail turns on his beloved rose—
With gravel voice heavy with pain he says,
You only have beautiful petals my rose, mere heady perfume,
but you cruelly pierce with your sharp thorns your lover’s heart,
and your soul, where your soul should have been,
is only an empty and dark tomb—
I will seek another rose, a rose as beautiful as you,
but without your thorns – Goodbye, farewell, adieu
my windblown rose, I will no longer lay claim to your heart,
a heart as dry as the ashes of burnt cinder.
With these bitter words, slowly, the saddened snail
crawled away from his beloved rose, dragging his heavy shell
on his bent back. Leaving behind a silver trail which the windblown rose
clung to with her forlorn eyes.

The silent longing in her heart wanted to break free
and cascade like a gushing waterfall to slake
the thirst of her soul.

But she had only her rapier words to speak to him.
She knew no other language to speak her need.
She had only her thorns – the thorns
left churning from the ashes of her burnt soul.

-by Rita Putatunda

Silver Sea

Like gossamer silken sheets, the silver sea sends its waves, to play hide and seek, with the shore.

Cinnamon Dreams

The flower in its cupped hands
Clasps the seeds
Of life unknown

Tomorrow sleeps snug
Curled in a cinnamon dream

The hummingbird and the bumblebee tumble
And dip their lips to lick
The sunshine sweet

The inky pink petals flutter
Despair like feathers on a duster

The dream can be nipped
Snipped with a scissors’ clip

I See My God

I see my God

In everything I see

Around me, within me

And even in what I do not see -

Just perceive

I see my God in the birth of a flower bud

Unfurling petal by petal into glorious blossom

I see my God in the myriad hued butterfly

That springs open its wings from its pupa

--- Flitting from flower to flower

     Tasting the nectar of sweet life---

I see my God in a fallen leaf

Turning brown with decay

Disappearing into the earth

I hear my God in the voice of early morning birdsong

Incessantly, insistently crying

Day break, day break, day break -

I see my God in the faltering step

Of feeble age when evening shadows fall

Proclaiming the death of another day

I see my God in a stone lying by the wayside

In a tree with its spreading branches

My God gazes at me

From the eyes of a street dog

I see my God in the wide eyed gaze

Of a laughing child

I feel my God in the monsoon breeze

In the billowing rain-clouds

I hear my God’s gentle footsteps

In the patter of life-giving rain

I hear my God’s terrifying voice

In the crack of lightning

That rips open the skies

---the crashing roar of thunder

That envelopes the earth

The devastating power of the unseen

Unleashed in a thunderstorm

In the quake of the earth

In the destruction of a distant star

I sense my God in the endless swish-swish-swish

Of the sea lapping the sands of the shore

The salt of the sea breeze

The endless surging and ebbing of tides

I feel my God in the light that awakens

The earth each morning

In the darkness that engulfs

The earth each night

I see my God in the dim light

Of a moon beam filtering through

Gathering clouds 

Of the stars that come out at night

Speaking of countless worlds

The countless swirling galaxies

Of suns, planets, moons, and stardust

That make up the Universe

I see my God in you, I see my God in me

I see my God in the fullness of everything

I see my God in the emptiness of nothing

Most of all I sense my God

Within my soul

In every breath I take

In every heartbeat

That pulses through me

And when life has fled me

Silencing my breath, stilling my heartbeat

Into that God who is beyond this Universe

I will merge

Becoming the fullness of everything

Becoming the emptiness of nothing

Maybe to remain in nothing

Maybe to re-awaken into everything

God is creation, conception

God is decay, destruction

God is rebirth, resurrection

- Rita Putatunda