The Mango Connection!

Its been happening for 6 days now, if i'm not wrong. It was six days back that a polythene cover of yellow, juicy, yummy fruits were humbly sitting near the dining table at home. Well, the Mangoes. And the only reason i remember that they got home 6 days back, is that i've been cutting one mango every evening for the past six days :D and i cut the last of the lot today! Mangoes are THE issue in summer...the sweetness, and the not-so-sweet-ness and the criticism they receive for being extremes of either of those categories! And then there are the varieties...there are so many of them! I don't think any other part of the world can ever have so many authentic names for their varieties of mangoes...banganapalli, malgova, rumani, alphonso, blahhh!!! And obviously people have their favourites :D With the right amount of sweetness and bitterness and sourness...ok, i'll stop! I really didn't want to do a post on mangoes and all....but some things have been coming to my mind every time i cut a mango, which lead to a series of other thoughts...

When i was cutting out the peel of the first mango, i had this urge to TASTE the mango!! At that very moment...when the oval-ness of the mango filled the inside of my palm, and the fingers of my other hand were engaged in the art of holding a knife...and the small mind that is mine, ran into the ripples of that past. I remember, when we were in kenya, mangoes were a big deal. They wouldn't swarm every street and vegetable shop during the summer. So, whenever mangoes were bought, and my mom decided the auspicious hour to slice them, my brother and i would gather around the table...eyes popping out expectantly, tongues watering (and watever other expression that can be added!) and she'd start peeling...and we'd have this craving to
see if it was the sweet type or the sour type... and we'd pick that first peel, take its inside part...and rip off the little mango that would have come out with the peel with our 4 front teeth...the mousy incisors! ( i didn't have braces then, and i was feeling so bad that i couldn't do it this time! arggh, the things braces do to u...!) And the satisfaction in eating the little mango that sticks to that first peel...aah! :D

Then...there was this time once...when i offered to cut mangoes at a family get-together at an aunt's place. And she obviously obliged, with all the work she had. And i began peeling them...one thing abt my uncle's that i find very cute, is that they cut fruits RELIGIOUSLY everyday...if not all of them, atleast 2 of them...So i started peeling...and one of those 2 uncles came and stood next to me. And he very sweetly criticised the way my peels were very small, in a way that nobody would realise it was criticism... I was just smiling at him, looking at my amateur mango-peeling skills!! And for a demonstration, he picked up the 2nd of the 4 mangoes, and peeled the whole thing in one cut of the knife! Meaning, the whole peel came out as one long stretch of skin...it was beautifully done. Some sort of an art...and i've been practising that method ever since! But am never able to do it fully! The max being 3/4th of the peel.... but thats long enough to satisfy me :D

And small things like this led me to think abt how i used to lick the uncooked contents of a cake...before it was shoved into the oven for baking. Note that the cake at that time contains RAW eggs, and how many ever times my mom would point that out to me, i'd give her one huge grimace for a moment, and then get back to licking it! And i also went back to how we'd always
want to eat the 'roasted' part of the potato curry that sticks to the illipa chatti (kadai) after the curry is cooked and done with!! And, there are alot more.... but, some other time.

I, as of now, live in the not-so-blissful period of what people here like to call 'study holidays' when one is able to do anything but study... And this is not the first time study hols have ben mentioned on this blog...So, i am doing exactly what my previous Study holidays post said i was doing...and for those of you who didn't see it then...'what study holidays can do to you'...

Yours "Mangoes are just about the only good part of summer'ly
Signing off.......