Under the Mango Tree

The mango tree in my Nani’s garden is my ultimate metaphor for life. My most blissful moments of communion with myself in total peace happened in the lap of its wide branches during the long, hot, summer-holiday afternoons when everybody else was taking their mandatory siesta.

Hidden for hours amidst its rich leaves, I learnt so much about life in general and myself in particular. Alone with the tree on its branches, I could be a tightrope walker, an acrobat, a monkey, a cat…anything I wanted to be without adult admonishments and prohibitions.

Sitting on a high fork of its branches, I saw armies of ants carrying dead things up its trunk. Even the sticky sal-leaf tray that we’d thrown after we finished the jalebis Nana bought for us was painstakingly carried up the trunk and ended up in a small hollow near the top of the tree. I saw spiders making shimmering, filigree-webs between its branches to trap the evening insects. When an insect was caught, a spider would appear from nowhere and roll it up into a cocoon faster than you could see.

I saw the huge tree’s dense leaves grow thicker every morning and evening when the loud and raucous parrots came in hundreds and camouflaged themselves so that it seemed that the mango tree itself was screeching like a banshee, waving its branches in a witch-like dance.

I saw mom’s silver hair-clips become a crow’s nest-decoration.

I saw Kiku mama pulling Reshmi didi from next door behind the wide trunk of the mango tree and heard her giggling and then pulling away with a little shriek, her payals making a tinkly sound as she climbed over the wall and ran away.

The mango tree was at the bottom of Nani’s garden right next to the low wall that separated her bungalow from the house next door. Nani said that when the bungalow was being built my mom was very small. Nani used to take her to the construction site when she went to see what the builders were doing.

One day, my mom sat on a stool near the wall and sucked on a mango Indian style while Nani was talking to the architect. After she finished “putting the mango all over her frock” (Nani said), she had thrown the mango seed on the loose brown dirt where the garden was going to be. By the time the family moved in, there was a small mango tree with long, smooth, rich-green leaves next to the back wall. Nani said it was the first living thing born in the new house and that it was a very good omen.

Over the years, the mango tree grew bigger with Nani’s family until its shade filled the small garden and its fruits mirrored the bountiful blessings Nani gave thanks for in her ardaas every morning. Children were born, christened, educated and married. Grandchildren and festivals were celebrated and the mango tree stood witness and blossomed with each of Nani’s achievements, its very presence a happy manifestation of the life that exploded within Nani’s home.

Nani’s house was always overflowing with people, animals and things. Everything there was larger than life. Rice, atta, sugar and ghee were stored in huge drums. Biscuits came in varieties of 16 kilo tins. Tandoori rotis were made in mountains. Houseguests came and went by the dozen and for them, inside Nani’s cavernous shipping trunks, there was a never-ending supply of mosquito-nets, bed linen, towels, cool white sheets or soft, silky, makhmal rajais depending on the time of the year. Sherbet was made in huge burnt-clay pots and served all day with Nana’s incessant supply of pakoras or chchaina murkis packed in little sal-leaf trays.

When Nani’s friends came in the mid-morning, they would sit under the mango tree sipping tea and gossiping quietly as they worked on their embroidery. In the evening, Nana and his friends would sit under the mango tree and play bridge as they sipped on their single malt.

Eventually, Nana and Nani both died. I grew up and stopped going to Giridih. But the mango tree has remained a part of my landscape in all the cities I have lived in or visited. It keeps coming back—in memories I share, in stories I write, in other mango trees I see—always a metaphor for life, ever larger than life.