Litchis

R #1
Every summer, we two kids and my mother would visit my maternal grandparents for a month. Their house was traditionally built in four separate sections surrounding a large dirt courtyard. The toilets and the bathrooms were outside this core area. There was no running water; buckets of water would be drawn from the well next to the bathrooms. Despite our entreaties we were forbidden to draw water from the well, in fact we weren’t even allowed to go near it without adult supervision. There was a large unmaintained garden around the house. There were bushes of aparajita and sandhyamalati all around, with blue, red, pink, white and yellow flowers. I remember a large cage-like trellis for ridge gourd, a vegetable my grandfather was particularly fond of. There were pumpkin and bottle gourd patches as well. And there were huge fruit trees. The fruit from the mango trees weren’t all that good, we were told, so the mangoes were plucked unripe and sour for making pickles, chutneys and panna, or to be eaten with salt, chilli powder and a bit of mustard oil. In addition there were a couple of jackfruit and guava trees and a rather messy jamun tree.

But to us the most memorable were the litchi trees. There were four of them, old and majestic. The litchis ripened during summer, coinciding with our visit; there must have been a few hundred kilos of litchis harvested from these trees. Each year, a few months before the season, the produce would be sold to a fruit supplier—he would be responsible for taking care of the fruits and their harvesting, and most of the produce would belong to him. The man, in a vest and chequered lungi, would arrive with a couple boys in tow. They would set up elaborate but crude contraptions of metal drums, pulleys and ropes on the branches of each litchi tree, and these ropes would connect to their cots. We would watch mesmerized. Pulling on the ropes from their cots would make clanging noises on the branches. They would clang away all night for a couple of weeks to drive away the hordes of greedy fruit bats swarming around the ripening litchis. A few more men, women and children would arrive on harvest day. They worked in an impressive streamline: men or older boys would climb up on the branches with sickles and pluck bunches of fruit that would be passed on to folks below, loaded on to baskets and heaped. Others would sort the fruit, throwing excess twigs, leaves or other debris into another pile, to be burnt later. This exercise would last an entire day.

My grandparents would get a small share of the harvest, large enough to have with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between for weeks, as well as to give away to their neighbours. We would be excited about peeling the beautiful pimply reddish skin off the fleshy fruit, examining near the stalk for worms, and popping them into the mouth. After a week we would have had enough, and the litchis would have to be coaxed on us. A large bag of the fruit would also accompany us back.

My maternal grandparents died three decades ago within a few months of each other. Their house and garden was sold off soon after, as four or five different plots. I guess the litchi trees might have been cut down by now. Litchis seem rare and quite pricey these days. I try to pick up a bunch whenever I see them with vendors, but I’m always disappointed. I guess it is difficult to bring back childhood, other than in memories and stories.

20 Jun 2016