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
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