If there's any antidote for the sweltering,
It's fruit
Be it - raw ripe mangoes, not yet fully done
Falling before their time
To a sudden swollen pre-summer thunderstorm
Scattered across the backyard
Were cut into long slices and relished with crushed red chillies in salt
Or small ripe ones
Suckled upon, like a mother's bossom, then peeled
Tasting nectar-like
Big enough to fit smugly in my child's first
Oh the raw sin, gnawing into piles of mangoes, for infinite afternoons
Be it jackfruit
What is this - god's gift to mankind
Huge gargantuan fruit
Protected underneath thorny skin
Like all good things soft and fleshy
And plenty to take us days to finish
Those who had sought help from the family and couldn't repay
Always thanked us with jackfruit
Also a jackfruit is true at heart, unlike the mango
Treacherous mango - which could turn out sour.
But a jackfruit is always sweet
Always predictable, can be taken for granted to play out exactly as expected, like me.
Be it watermelon.
Frozen watermelon after sultry summer lunches
Have you had those?
Impossible to describe the feeling
When a chunk of watermelon hits your palate
Utterly confusing, like is it water - is it melon?
And I could chomp chomp chomp, without a care in the world
And then there was
Pomelo
Shameless fruit of December though
A magician's fruit - almost
Scary large oranges
Not orange in the flesh, but pink nearly or scarlet
The peel was so thick, you'd have to knife through
And the wedges - too large for my child's first
They weren't sweet or sour
And sometimes too watery to tell the difference
But they grew at the end of our garden
The furthest point from home
On the absolute edge of our kingdom
After the marigold patches, and chilly rows
Pumpkin field, coconut orchard,
Two ponds brimming with sweet fish
And then - ah at the end of the world
The Pomelo tree
I was told stories about how the seed was procured and planted
All made-up am sure
But to my child's mind, it was a magician's tree
Because how else could oranges be that big?