Lonliness

She sifted through the photographs

Black, white and grey

Feeling the stark, damp, concrete walls,

From reality, fade away.

The taste of stale bread

The bland soup now cold,

The smell of dead flowers,

A grim reminder…….

“Now you are OLD!”

The Mango Dilemma

Come summers and my mango dilemma begins!

I have fond memories of many a summer afternoon in my childhood, gorging on deliciously sweet and luscious mangoes together with my siblings and sometimes even my cousins, in the City of Mangoes, Salem. We would sit on the floor with lots of old newspapers spread out before us and literally lick the mango juice as it fell onto our hands while digging into sinfully sweet and thick flesh! More often than naught, for days on end, this would be our lunch too!

I remember Ma once remarking that we should enjoy the mangoes in summer and eat to our heart’s content because once the monsoons set in, mangoes would disappear completely from our dining table. She said that mangoes consumed during and after the rains were a sure shot to diarrhea, ameobiasis and dysentery. And so the mangoes remained all through the hot summers and disappeared completely on the advent of the monsoon, to return again the following summer.

So, what’s the dilemma then?

It’s now, now that I’m married and have been married for almost 35 years and have lived in North India all these years. Mangoes begin to appear here from March itself but they don’t excite me at all. One look and I turn away in disgust – they’re yellow on the outside alright but synthetically ripened and oh-so-tasteless and sour! So, I just don’t buy them. By May, the markets are flooded –green on the outside and pale yellow inside – again I move away from these nameless, not-so-tempting, so-called-mangoes!

 But then, hubby dear seems quite interested!! He buys a few (just to try them out, he says) but I refuse to touch them. Our conversation goes something like this –

Me:                 You call these mangoes?

He:                  Arre, you don’t know anything about mangoes….wait till the dusheris and langdas come……have you ever tasted anything like them?....what about, chausa…?  And….and…..the fozli of Malda? (the loyal Bengali, after all)…nothing in comparison…..

Me (bristling up like a porcupine):

Ah..ha..ha…dusheri, langda, fozli!! My foot! You’re telling ME about mangoes! ME, who was brought up in the City of Mangoes – Salem…having grown up on Gundu, Malcova, Salem-Benglura….you’ve never seen the likes of them, ever! What do YOU know? 

He:                  Umphh!  Gundu, indeed!

And, so on……while I sulk like a gundu myself!

The rains bring down the temperature in the city (and at home also) and the gleam in my husband’s eyes are quite visible as the streets get flooded with water and fruit vendors are found every 10 metres with their carts overloaded with his favourite dusheri, langda and chausa!

There’s a tussle every day as he goes to the market to buy fresh fruits. I always tell him NOT to buy mangoes but he invariably returns with a kilo or so. My argument is that I don’t eat mangoes once the monsoon sets in and he says that his favourites appear only during and after the monsoons! So, the mangoes shall and will come to our dining table!

Being a Salem mango loyalist, I won’t ever switch sides although I hardly ever get to eating my favourites here in Delhi, and the ‘not-to- eat-mangoes-during-the-monsoons’ is still a predominant factor.

But, sometimes, just to prove I’m still humane, I do take a bite off the langda or chausa, albeit with a don’t-care attitude while weeping inside for those gundu mambalams!

…..and surprisingly, my tummy is still OK!!

Blast To the Past

The other day I read three news items in the paper –

(i) Sweet shops are finding it difficult to price their wares based on the latest GST because of individual tax rates on different ingredients (cocoa powder, cashewnuts, saffron, pista etc), so sweets are likely to get very expensive.

(ii) The Railway Ministry is encouraging passengers to carry home-cooked food as of late, there have been a lot of complaints regarding the quality of food being served.  (iii) The Railway Ministry is considering doing away with bedding in AC coaches.

Now this has got me thinking .....It's BLAST TO THE PAST ……..

When we were young, very rarely did we buy sweets from the market; they were always prepared at home - and therefore, they were pure, they were delicious and they had the most important ingredient - love (grandmother's/mother's), although they were anything but fancy looking! I still crave for those unadulterated kaju barfis that my mother used to make, the golden brown pedas covered lightly with powdered sugar, coconut barfis and the-most-difficult-to -make-at-home Karachi Halwa!! Then there were rosogollas, puran poli, patisapta and sandesh...everything was home-made!

Train journeys were great fun because of the goodies that were packed in the food basket for those 'picnics on wheels'...for long journeys there was always something special for every meal! I marvel at my mother's innovative culinary ideas that made sure nothing got spoiled during these journeys!

The highlight of our train journey was of course the quintessential HOLDALL - a canvas rectangular roll with large pockets on either side that could hold pillows, bedsheets, blankets, footwear...anything and everything that couldn’t fit into our suitcases. This would then be rolled up and strapped with leather straps! Sometimes this roll would end up being so big that it required all of us siblings to sit on it to flatten it out a bit so the straps could be buckled. Oh, how much we used to laugh when Aloka, the eldest, being a little on the heavy side would make the final and successful attempt !

Now, thanks to the woes of sweet shops and the Railway Ministry, our children and grandchildren will finally get a taste of OUR golden years! 

PS: If one of my artistic friends can add a sketch of a holdall, it will complete this write-up!