Sunday, April 16, 2023

Mango Time Again - Thank you Benevolent Tree!

 It's that time of the year when our faithful mango tree blesses us with its bounden duty and gives us hundreds of mangoes. Now these are eyed by hundreds of my neighbours, kids from the nearby slum, workers from the new apartment block coming up next door and so on and so forth. Over time we have also become more sharing and caring, less agitated over these 'thieves' and though we tell them off every now and then, the menace has gone and its more a bargaining transaction. Even when the kids threw some sticks over to knock some mangoes over I was quite composed. I am getting wiser (my new term for older).



The last few years Vasu has been my go-to man simply because he enjoys these outings - he likes climbing trees, making those sticks and bags and plucking off hundreds of mangoes from the tree. This year he has been extremely busy so we relied on Rajesh,  Ramu's grandson and he and his friend salvaged some couple of hundred mangoes. Rajesh's mother Manga offered to make some avakai pickle and she has done a great job as well.

Now the mangoes, large and juicy have gone for ripening under the newspapers and we are hoping to eat some nice juicy ones soon as we normally do every year. And once again I must thank my mother for her foresight in planting this tree some fifty years ago almost, and mostly the tree for giving us bountifully without judging us and our love and affection to it (we only show our love and affection after it gives us the mangoes - rather matlabi that way).

But when we do, we do it whole heartedly. Getting there tree, getting there. We have some distance before we get to where you are - completely non-judgmental. Thanks for the mangoes! (And sorry for cutting off your branches last year - would not have had it not been for the neighbour cribbing!)      

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