Of mangoes, our village, our family, children, money, work etc.

We are, on my father's side, a family of intellectuals. Most of them have been teachers all their life or for some period for sure. One more thing in common to all of them is that they are all amateur artists. in one form or the other. My grandfather D, used to paint very well. I've seen some of his work still on display at our village temple. He had sketched all the plans for the school building to be built at the village. One can say he was an amateur architect. He was quite talented in music too, they tell me. His second brother G, sings very well. He was an amateur actor for village theatre groups. Of course being from a respectable upper caste yet poor family, he was never allowed to indulge in theatre more than the parts he played as favours to the theatre groups... but I'm told he held Keertans and was quite talented in that. His son, my cousin-uncle, who is a doctor by profession is also a nice singer. The only one in the next generation. Despite my father's talent in music as a composer and a critic, he has not been able to sing as well as he would have liked to. Never the less, the talent is still there.
My grandfather’s youngest brother V, however, was a problem case. Unlike the rest of the lot he was called 'the Aurangzeb of Music'. A no-talent man.
This is his story.
His and mine.
V, the youngest brother was probably the most well endowed with the gift of sarcasm that people from Konkan love to show off. But apart from the wise-cracks he was never considered to be a genius.
I, when I met all of them, took to him immediately. I was surprised to learn later that he had failed in his matriculation and was not the brightest of the lot. I couldn’t believe it. He had a talent for words and he and I shared our delightful sarcasm and respected each other for that. The other link was the then obscene jokes referring to shit and other dirty parts of the body. I loved him, in my first meeting.
I later realized that he was considered a very unpleasant person because of all of this.
I had become an arrogant kid with sharp language and no mercy. The next time I met him, he hated me. I hated him back. By then I had learnt a thing or two about his past and made no hesitation in throwing them at him when he tried to scold me.
I don’t want to go into the details of why my hatred for him grew stronger, because the people who caused it did not mean for it to happen. I was a very emotional kid with intentions to reward and punish moral and immoral behaviour as I saw it.
Later, when I realized that things were not as I saw them, but much simpler, I repented and wanted to make amends.
This happened around that time.
I was in my village on one of our visits, and I hated him as I used to but I felt nostalgic none the less about how we had shared jokes and witty remarks before.
I don’t know how he felt.
So I went with him, simply because I had nothing else to do that afternoon, and I had heard they had got some men to pluck mangoes off the trees.
I had heard people talk very respectfully of V, when they referred to the mangoes because he was the one who took care of the entire little plantation -a few mango trees (kalams- alphonso mangoes, which require special care and are made specially) a few cashew trees, countless vegetables. It was all mainly his work.
So I was with him when we went to see how they pluck mangos. They have these long sticks, with sharp hooks at the ends, with nets below the end. (these things are called akdaas) you catch a mango by the stem in the hook, give it a twist with your wrist and the mango lands softly in the net attached to it.
The men plucking the a mangoes hated him because of his comments, but more so because of his insistence that they bring down the aakdas after plucking two mangoes.
‘To avoid them falling on each other and getting damaged’ he explained to me later.
I had never seen him so particular about anything.
For that period he forgot that he hated me, and explained all of the things. I had forgotten I hated him and asked more and more questions.
I did everything I could to help him there.
I was with my cousin, and did everything I could to shine over him, with displays of understanding and physical strength to carry more mangoes at a time.
I don’t remember whether I wondered why I was trying to impress him!
Anyway, I do now, and I know the answer.
Because I was seeing an artist in concert. He was one with the plantation and the mangoes and I was mesmerized because this was a new form of art I had ever seen and I could not even define it.
We then carried all the mangos inside. A lot of them. Hot, hard green fruits. The king of Konkan as they call it.
We then began to arrange them in neat rows. He was very particular about the arrangements. The smaller ones on one side, the larger ones on the other. The ones that looked like they needed more care in a different row.
He explained to me why that had to be done. It's because post-plucking care for mangoes is as important as the care they need while they are on the tree. I understood totally why he hated the nice neighbouring kids for trying to steal them. I began to hate them too.
He told me how they were still alive even after being plucked as long as they were warm, and how we had to take care of them as the tree would if they were still left there.
In my attempts to overshadow my cousin, I hurried through the arrangements. He rushed to me and asked me to treat them tenderly. He told me to make sure I put them on the bedsheet softly as not to hurt them, or damage them in any way. (we had put a bedsheet on the ground, so as to not get any dirt on them.)
I had never seen this man, who was at times so hurtful to people around him being so tender and fatherly.
Afterwards, he looked at the neat rows and smiled at me. That was a real high!
After all of that was done, I asked him what we were to do next.
He simply said, we were to wait for the company people who came to collect the mangoes to make ‘Fruity’ or ‘Mangola’. I waited with him. Within half an hour a big truck stopped at the village and some men came with gunny bags.
They all went to different houses, and two of the hairy lot came to ours. They looked at the rows once, spoke to him for a moment. Then the two of them went to the mangoes, one of them held one end of the bedsheet, the other one held the other end, and they picked the entire arrangements of mangoes- the big ones, the small ones, the healthy ones and the sick ones, all together, and hurled them ruthlessly in the gunny bags.
They landed with loud thuds in the gunny bags as I watched with my mouth ajar, totally out of words. Totally out of any emotions too.
They took the other pile and inflicted the same atrocities on that one too. Then they picked their gunny bags up with a grunt and went straight to their trucks where they hurled the bags into the truck from below with the same ruthless mechanicality that German soldiers may have shown to the bodies of Jews they had just tortured and killed.
Then they returned and pushed some notes into V’s hands, and drove away.
That’s when I noticed him for the first time.
He gave me a defiant yet apologetic smile that I always gave to the people I had intentionally hurt and felt sorry for after I met them again. ‘Well, that’s what we do with mangoes.’ He said to me and went into the house.
I don’t know how, but my hatred for him lost all of its sharpness that day.
Whenever I eat a very good mango, I think of him. Whenever I see a mango that has been damaged, I think of him. I don’t drink mango drinks too often, but if I ever do, I think of him.

Whenever I write something for someone now, I think of him.







p.s.
Disclaimer
There are facts in this, and the gaps in the facts, I have filled with fiction. For any family member, if yo stumble upon this somehow, all of this is fiction. I respect and love all of you.