Yes, yes, I know it is currently the mango season and all that, but this one, though closely related to those mangoes, is a bit different. I recently participated in a blogathon held by Tulika books on mangoes and my post was declared one of the winning entries. My prize : A copy of this book.
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| Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com |
Written by Malavika Shetty
Illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta
Published by Tulika books
Ages 5+
Do you remember that when you were a child, you probably had a very close buddy (a friend or a sibling) who you hung out with, with whom you shared every little secret, and who was your partner-in-crime for all the mischief that you got into? With whom you shared absolutely everything?
But sometimes you had something really tasty. You hoarded it, hid it from everybody, even your closest buddy and ate it bit by bit, all by yourself? Didn't want to share it with ANYONE?
I would do that. My mother would give me some guL-shengdaNe (jaggery and peanuts - a really yummy combination that I loved. You split open the peanut, and stuffed some jaggery between the halves, and then popped it into your mouth. Yum!) and I would be loath to share it with anyone. I would keep it in a box in a secret place, and eat it surreptiously throughout the day, making it really last. I was reminded of that as I read this book.
Suma is a little girl who loves mangoes in any form. There was, of course, the delicious, juicy fruit, but there were also the pickles and curries made at home that she relished.
Now, Suma has a bosom buddy, Jyothi. The two girls were neighbours in a village near Udupi, a coastal town on the mango belt near the western coast of India. The village had many mango and coconut trees, and there were some around their houses. Summer meant a surfeit of mangoes, and of course, they had to be got by climbing the trees, and eaten freshly picked from the branches.
There was a particular mango tree, the mundappa mango, that grew behind Suma's house. It grew huge, round and sweet mangoes. One day, Suma spots a really big specimen, bigger than a coconut.
'But it was still raw, and it would be a few days before it ripened to sweetness.
Suma couldn't wait to eat it. "I won't tell Jyothi," she thought. "I'll eat it all by myself."
So what happens next? How does she get through the few days of waiting? Does she get to eat it? All by herself? What about Jyothi?
A book about the joys of friendship, and the carefree innocence of childhood. A drool-worthy book, with warm, summery illustrations by Ajantha Guhathakurtha matching the yumminess of the text.
A read the book within ten minutes of its arrival at home, and was smiling as she finished it. I suppose she, too, was thinking of the way she is often loath to share some of the goodies she gets from her grandparents' place when we visit. And how we sometimes enjoy them better when shared!
Crossposted at Saffrontree.
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A word about the mundappa mango. It is a variety that I have not heard of. I did a google-search for it, and came across this article from the Metro Plus section of the Mangalore edition. Quoting from it:
"The Mundappa has a distinctive taste and develops sweetness in its very early growing stage. Even when ripe, its colour will still be green, but a reddish tinge on the top indicates that the fruit is ready for consumption. If allowed to grow to its full size (some growers do) each Mundappa can weigh as much as 450-500 grams. Though they are a local variety, the fully-grown Mundappas arrive in the market only during mid-season."
Another article, this time a blog post from a farming blog, SundayFarmer, laments the gradual disappearance of local and wild varieties of the fruit due to a demand for the 'more marketable' varieties like the alphonso, totapuri, dasheri, etc. Quoting:
"‘Mundappa’ is another local variety that many people in Dakshina Kannada district would readily recall. Ayurveda specialist Dr K.S. Kamath, from Manchi village, says this variety originally came from the compound of a house on Dongarakery-New Chitra Theatre Road in Mangalore.
A red variant of this mango used to grow on three trees in the heart Mangalore city until a few years ago. None of them can be found today as a posh shopping mall stands on that land. Ironically, the hypermarkets at that mall stock a range of hybrid mangoes, but the local red mundappa can no longer be had for love or money."
A mango locally grown and known in the western coastal mango belt around the Mangalore area, this, along with the many others which are just as or sometimes even more delicious than the commercially known variants, needs to be preserved and propogated for future generations.
A sad state of matters, indeed. Like the 'goti mango' that I remember from my childhood. A very small, very sweet variety that is not to be seen anywhere these days.
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