Among the most memorable scenes of Sholay is the one in which Hema Malini tries to knock raw mangoes off a tree by throwing stones at them but remains unsuccessful, until Dharmendra walks in and effortlessly shoots down a couple of mangoes with his pistol — before offering to teach her to do the same.
Sholay released in 1975. Thirty-two years later, in 2007, I happened to visit the town of Ramanagaram — near Bangalore — whose rocky terrain had served as Ramgarh in the cult film. There, at a Shiva temple atop a hillock, I met Parasuram, who was one of the carpenters engaged by Ramesh Sippy’s art director to erect the sets for Sholay . I also met Kadamma, whose daughter fell in love with Dharmendra’s driver during the shooting of the film, which had lasted four years. The lovers got married after Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan visited her humble dwelling to persuade her into accepting the match.
But what I remember most from that trip is the sight of boys and girls, barely 10 or 12 years old, trying to bring down mangoes with catapults. India may have moved on since the days of Sholay , but its fascination for green mangoes remains timeless.
The mango, once it ripens, becomes elitist — often not within the reach of the poor; but while it is still raw and green, it somehow remains accessible to almost everybody, even if with the help of sticks and stones. The sight of the green fruit hanging from a tree can bring out the child in the most serious-natured adult.
Just the other day, I was woken up by the watchman at seven in the morning: he had come to collect the maintenance fee at that unearthly hour. Unable to go back to sleep, I made myself some green tea and sat by the window in the hall, only to find the window opening to a mango tree that had countless green fruits dangling from its branches.
I wanted to put my hand out and pluck a few, but the tree was not as close as it appeared. All I could do was feast my eyes on the different shades of green until the tea lasted. It is one thing to see green mangoes heaped on a shelf in a supermarket, quite another to see them hanging from trees. In the supermarket, they are a commodity; on a tree, they are unadulterated delight.
Later that day, a colleague from the advertising department dropped in to see me, and during the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was deeply disturbed because the windshield of his car, parked under a mango tree, had been broken the night before by a falling mango. I was full of sympathy and surprise: so far I had only heard of coconuts causing damage to cars.
In the evening when I got home, the watchman intercepted me at the gate. He informed me that a mango had cracked the windshield of my car. Since I don’t know how to drive, I am not emotionally attached to the car. My wife, who would have treated the crack as a catastrophe, was out of town and I was in no hurry to break the news to her.
“Do you have the mango?” I asked the watchman.
“Here it is,” he produced it.
I took the offending mango home, peeled it, cut it into small pieces and put them in the blender along with one green chilli, a spoonful of kasundi (mustard sauce), the juice of a large lemon and a pinch of black salt. My taste-buds hadn’t felt so pampered in a long time.
