Mangoooeess !!

Mangoooeess !!! Yesterday I squealed with joy upon laying my hands on the king of the fruits-MANGO !! Finally..!! yaaaaaaaaaay !! :D I had been searching for quite some time for these majestic fruits but alas.. couldn’t find the good ones…seems like the rains had played foul with their produce ( and my feelings too :( ) As I held my much prized possession in hand, I was suddenly transported to the past… Flash Back… Back home, each summer would be marked with the arrival of the “Badami” or “Begumfalli” Aam, and we would savor the aamras that mum prepared for us in copious amounts ! I would in fact freeze the left over portion and enjoy the lip-smacking mango ice cream next day :) Soon after few weeks our locality would witness a couple of hawkers shouting – "Hapuuuuuuuuus, Hapuuuuuus !". Then me n bro would desperately wait to get our hands on them at the earliest !! Me n bro (whom I fondly call “bho-bho” :P) have a peculiar habit, we intake the aroma of the Haapus (Alphonso) and OMG we get an instant burst of energy..! We would Dance with joy that finally the time has come to experience pure mango pleasure ;) So sweet, so pure, so intoxicating is the smell of Haapus, infact everything about it ! Summers were much awaited for these badshaahs ! Further flashback… During school days, on my visit to my native place- where I wouldn’t find the haapus, there is a certain variety of “chusne wale aam” (don’t know it by any other name :P ), the mangoes whose nectar is meant to be sucked ! Aaah ! Each time I went there, I made sure Nanaji bought an abundant quantity of these juicy variety … after all they were one of the major reasons why I visited my native! (sheepishly !) Each evening all the children of the house would assemble in the verandah and Nanaji would come out with a bucket full of these ripe, fragrant, fab-looking delicacies, and treat us ! We would then get ourselves dirty with the pulp all over us, later on licking the leftover pulp - over our lips, hands , slurp every tini-miny portion of it to make sure none gets wasted :P and throw away the peel and the seed( Guthli) to the calves and feel glad to having given the calves their share of mangoes too..!! Then came the time to go back home, June first week …and thus the season of other bhai-bandhu of the mango family : “Dusehri” and “Langda”. The Mangoes which would not yield aamras, yet made a special place in my heart…afterall they were the last mangoes of the season !!! And slowly the taste of mangoes would start deteriorating and the short-spanned season of mangoes , would get over, leaving behind their golden memories and the lingering taste on our tongues ! So modest are these mangoes, they are the king of the fruits, yet are lovingly called “Aam” Ye koi aam baat toh nahi…