Of mangoes and murabbas

After decades, my mom is back making aamer aachar, mango pickles. Mostly because we are in a city famous for the king of fruits. The taste of Jhal aachar (the spicy one), tel aam (weathered mango cubes immersed in mustard oil), or the most favourite one: Gud aam (a hot and sweet variety signature style of Bengali households) bring back memories of a distant place and a magical childhood.

Growing up in the 80s, in a place where you considered your neighbours as relatives, and where the television did not reach till late 80s, mango pickles were more than just what they were. They bonded people, mostly kids.

My parents were posted in Hutbay, Little Andaman, when I was a kid. On rare occasions, when someone's grandparents visited the islands from 'Mainland', the kids' gang would eagerly wait to visit the privileged house and see if they brought any aam Murabba or gud aam with them. Our neighbour and family friend Pratima Sahu kakima's mother made heavenly murabba which she carried while going back from summer vacations. Thanks to her daughters and me, those golden pieces of bliss never lasted over a month. If and when I had lunch at their place, I would wait for kakima to finish her lunch after she had fed all others. Then it was murabba and chat time for both of us. That is what leisure was like. I would keep licking the golden sugary syrup and munching on the sweet mango bites while she told me things about her childhood, her family back in mainland, things that a young me sometimes didn't understand, things her daughters were too young to be interested in.

Gud aam that came from my mom's kitchen and that of Nanuma, another aunt in the colony were unmatched. Nanuma's house was an attraction for us for many other tidbits too. Those days, playing in the ground in evenings, any house could be our place for a quick bite and Nanuma's house was a treasure trove of goodies.

The jhal achaar was for teenagers, to sneak out in lazy afternoons with some aachar in whatever leaf was handy: banana or guava and sit on branches of trees (my friend Jyotsna Pandey had a few guava trees with branches hanging low) and chat about nothing in general, while taking the spicy gravy on fingertips and licking noisily.

These days, post lunch, my mother and I are back chatting over some gud aam and the kids just sit somewhere, quiet, only sound you can hear is them smacking their lips. Sometimes, even half an hour later, you'll see the little one still sucking on what was once the hard outer shell of the seed. Her reply, when she's asked to spit it out, is invariably, "Darao, arektu gud aachhe". ( There's still some juice left)