Mangoes and Memories!

I had my first plate of curd rice with mangoes in almost two years. Watermelon and mango are two fruits I’ve never purchased after moving to Canada. When a wonderful colleague at a friend gave me a mango I took it home and it sat in my kitchen counter for a week until I could not bear seeing it shrink. I cut it up and sat down to eat it with tears prickling the corner of my eyes. Each bite and morsel brought out an evocative memory of scorching Indian summers and juicy ripe Banganapli mangoes.

Memories of a mother who would just eat the tiny amount of flesh around the seed only so we would have enough, a father who would religiously carry bags of mango up three flights of stairs almost every day during mango season, a sister who would sneak mango cubes onto my plate, Sunday family lunches in the sweltering Chennai summer when every meal would end with curd rice with mangoes and piping hot puris with puréed mangoes which my mother would serve me endlessly. Such memories of love. Such nights would also end up with my mother forcing me to drink a glass of milk, apparently milk would cool down the “heat” generates by mangoes. Such memories of irritating love.

So at the end of this meal as my corner-eye pooling tears came flowing down, I had to look deep within to understand that despite all, I have only gained more than I have lost. And that I would always have mangoes, curd rice, love and the memories of eating mangoes in Chennai in my life.

Now I just need to muster up some more courage to go and buy a watermelon😊

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