A couple of weeks ago, I managed to find my favourite variety of mangoes. No, it was not the snooty alphonso or the lush banganapalli, or any of those blushing, fancy kinds that now colour fruit shops in myriad shades of green, orange and yellow. This was the humble but now increasingly unavailable, singularly unfashionable kottukonam variety of mangoes that are native to Thiruvananthapuram.
As I took a deep whiff of the fruit, I was transported to mango seasons many summers ago. That was when the grounds around my paternal grandmother’s home were filled with kottukonam mangoes. By March, each branch would be heavy with fruit in different stages of green, red and orange. On the day my grandmother decided that it was time to pluck the mangoes, she would send word to a wiry chap, who could fearlessly climb even the tallest tree and pluck the half-ripe mangoes without squashing or dropping them on the ground. He would come with an assistant, a boy younger than him, who would miraculously manage to gather all the mangoes being dropped down into his sack. He could have taught our fielders a lesson or two!
So, on the appointed day, this chap would come early in the morning. His weapon to battle red weaver ants covering all the trees was to generously apply a coating of orumbu podi (Gammexane powder) all over his body and then clamber up the trees one by one. He used no ladder or knife. Each mango or bunch of mangoes would be plucked and thrown into the sack.
Once the sacks reached home, the fruit would be sorted and stored in wooden boxes filled with hay and left to ripen. For days together, the store and kitchen were filled with the aroma of ripening mangoes. Once they ripened, we would be allowed to feast on the ripe mangoes, all under the watchful eye of my grandmother.
Ah, the joy of biting into those mangoes, the colour of sunshine, with juice dribbling down our chins. This was nothing like delicately nibbling on chunks of velvety smooth alphonso; this was more like using your teeth to tear into the mangoes... and then savouring the juicy chunks. There was fibre that would cling stubbornly to the teeth and, later, would be teased out with great concentration, much to the irritation of fastidious elders.
While we were allowed to feast on the kottukonam mangoes, there were other local varieties that were earmarked for pickles, to be soaked in brine or for curries. And these varieties were home-grown. Many of the houses then had different kinds of mangoes.
Some of the mangoes from a particular tree, my grandmother declared, were ideal for pickling in brine. Those were washed, dried carefully and stored in earthen bharanis filled with brine. The mouth of the jar was tied with a clean piece of cloth and kept aside. Then there was the famous kanni manga pickle that my grandmother made every year with tender fruit from a tree that grew near the cowshed. This would find its way to the homes of her children and grandchildren. The mangoes from a huge tree outside my aunt’s house were best used to make manga pulisseri .
However, my maternal grandmother, who hailed from Kochi, would turn up her nose at these slightly rough fruits. Nothing other than the Chandrakaran from her ancestral home in Edapally would do when it came to curries in the summer. The karyastan , who looked after the house, would faithfully send her a bagful of those treasured mangoes with a faint taste and fragrance of camphor, that grew on a gnarled tree near a large pond.
Summer was also the time when my mother would reminisce about growing up with nearly 50 cousins in a sprawling house on an island and how they would feast on the fruit. As I once again hold the treasured kottukonam mangoes, I don’t haggle with the old vendor. She tells me how these are much in demand as they are organic. I pay her and take home a bag of the precious fruit to savour and share mango memories afresh with my children.
As the days lengthen and the mercury soars, the sole mango tree in my garden is covered with tiny emerald fruits, perhaps to create mango memories for my kids.
