Of summers... and raw mango pickles...

The spoon scrapes the bottom of the jar. The faaaar bottom of the jar. Scrape… scrape…scrape… with complete concentration, I scrape out the oily, golden remnants of the raw mango pickle I had got from my mom’s a year ago – a low-spice version. The jar has lasted a year, mostly because I have, ahem… not quite been over-eager to share. Not even with my kid (who is not a huge fan) or my husband, before whom, I may have pushed forth the store bought lemon pickle (his favorite… ahem… really truly).  

I think of the other raw mango pickle I had brought from India on a previous trip. It has been made in a dark earthen pot. Marinated in the mud pot, till the fleshy raw mango succumb to the oils and the salts and spices, to turn into limp fiery goodness. That tiny jar I fear will be my undoing given its spice level. But again, life’s too short I tell myself each time I get a spoonful.

As I watch my twelve-year-old traipse around the neighborhood with her friends, as they scuttle from house to house, make popsicles, bike around, jump in the pool, highlight their hair (ahem…), I think of our summers in India. Raw mango pickles, and raw mangoes certainly form a prominent flavor of those childhood summers.

I think of my maternal grandmother’s garden and the fruit trees in it - mango, jackfruit, guava, chickoo, passionfruit and even an avocado tree. I think of the hours spent in those trees, and a few scars that still bear witness. I think of the times we get into trouble for plucking passion fruits, not quite ready. Not sure why that was a problem really since we happily ate the tart fruit. But the most serious trouble we get into, is when we pluck my grandmother’s prized Alphonso mangoes, while still raw. I faintly recollect being locked up in a room on occasion for sneakily stealing raw mangoes off the Alphonso mango tree. Such a crime!

I remember two friends who are cousins and lived in a large joint family. Their moms make huge, just huge amounts of mango pickle to be stored away in huge jars. A favorite afternoon time activity is to sneak into the jars and get a few chunky pieces of raw mangoes, happily bathed in yellow and orange. I am only too happy to join in. The spice level is high and we carefully rinse the pieces. The true art lies in washing off the spice, without washing away too much.  

But my most favorite raw mango memory comes back to life on my last trip to India when I meet a friend after 27 years. We marvel and laugh at our antics -- Of the five girls, thick as thieves, aged 11 or 12, biking about the streets in the scorching sun. Of meeting on a field, every evening for organized youth sports and yoga activities. Of getting into fights with the boys to determine who gets to play soccer. I realize that may have been our first ever feminist protest as we demand to those in charge for the girls to get equal soccer time as the boys.

This “ground” as it was known, is a large field with mango trees. Memories tumble out and we laugh at the stories of our youth and our summers spent together. When my friend tells me she has a picture of me performing in a skit in their neighborhood’s Ganapati festival celebrations, I am puzzled. She reminds me that’s how it was – we did everything together for a while. Her memory is more intact than mine and I am grateful, for the stories are hilarious and make me laugh, sometimes in incredulous disbelief.

A favorite afternoon time activity for these five girls, is climbing over the gate to the ground, when we know for sure, the watchman takes a siesta. The raw mangoes are stretched out on the thinner branches, so climbing is not a wise option. Instead, we pelt them with stones to make them fall. It has to be done carefully. It means finding the flattest possible stones, preferably with a sharp edge and pelting it to the top of the raw mango, so as to not bruise it too much. A bullseye would be a hit on the little stem from which it hangs.

Ah… the skills I acquired in my youth.
We would then take our spoils to someone’s house – probably the closest house or the one in which the adult present is down for a siesta or better yet, absent. We wash the poor bruised fruit, cut it, salt it, then bravely add some chilly powder and gleefully chomp on the tart fruit snack crinkling our noses, satisfied with our prized wins from the afternoon expeditions.

Minor miscreants, you say? Similar thought run through my head as I type, but I am quick to shake them off. For these questionable activities brought so much mirth and laughter, even when being screamed at and chased away by the watchman. The image of five girls running and jumping over the gate, whilst hanging on to the precious raw mangoes, in the scorching heat, is too funny and joyful to have any negative undertones.

Once, when we have a rather large loot, I take my share of spoils to my mom, to add to her freshly made raw mango pickle. She looks at the mangled and bruised fruit and diplomatically suggests I make my own, in its own special jar. I am delighted. I cut the fruit on an old fashioned wili, a cutting device which is a wooden stool with an arched knife attached. I sit on the wili and carefully cut the fruit, add the oil and spices and salts and whatever else my mom gives me. I feel so proud. I admire the jar and watch the mango pieces give in to the salts and spices. I watch as they change color and the oils and spices trickle in tiny rivers to cover them. This would be my first mango pickle (and sadly, perhaps also my last).

As I scrape the jar some more, I wonder if it’s simply the taste of raw mangoes and its pickle that gives me such joy, or the deliciousness of the memories of summers far away, just like this one, yet so different.