HEALTH - ~ NEWS - ~ The Mango Majlis

An Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Kamala Nehru College
recalls how mangoes were chosen, how they became an open house
Saturday affair at home and she wonders why this king of fruits (her
favourite!) is called 'Aam' (ordinary) when it is anything but!
~
There is nothing as messy and enjoyable as eating a mango in the
monsoon rain sitting on a swing. Try it. The sweetness of the mango,
the salty rainwaterdashing against your cheeks, and the suspended
parabolic state as you swing up and down makes the experience most
delectable.
Since childhood this king offruits has made my summer basket most
memorable. Almost all summers in my house are about squishing mangoes.
My father buys them with ritualistic fervor. He gets upat five in the
morning to catch the enviable best. And as summer lazily moves its
tail my family stock moves, from Alphonso to Safayda; from Dusseheri
to Langda; and the last of the season Chausa. An old school mango
eater, my father celebrates the fruit with a rigid mango protocol,
refusing to buy it in any other order.
Any real connoisseur of thisfruit knows that buying a mango is as much
an art – it should be ripe and yellow with just a touch of green,
should have the characteristic mango smell and as you touch it, it
should yield mildly.
Mango eating in my house is an affair– in Hindustani aword that would
describe it most ideally would be -a 'Majlis'. Every Saturday friends
are invited and lots of mangoes are on offer and to say the least no
onecounts as we all savor it with chit–chat.
In my family album summer months can be easily identified, as one of
us would be carrying a precariously placed boil along with a cheesy
smile, thanks to the hectic mangoconsumption.
The mango tale, I remember most vividly is how my sister and I jumped
the rear window ofour ground floor house choosing to savor mangoesin
the monsoon rain over the
pre-scheduled weekly Kathak class. I still remember peeping out of the
window to find guruji approaching in his white Kurta-Pyjama, his salt
and pepper curly locks dancing against the invitingly black rain
clouds. We sisters, swiftly tucked our mangoes under our elbowsand
jumped out of the window. That was the end of Kathak for both of us.

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