My father’s Mango plant

I studied an engineering course in the city, and my parents stayed in a village. I got a job as a software engineer in the city. After three years of working, my parents arranged my marriage to a software engineer girl from the city.

My wife and I took a rented flat in the city and led a happy life.

With increased software companies, the real estate business started to develop in the city. Some of my software company friends purchased plots on the city’s outskirts from a real estate company. I joined them and bought a plot of 500  Square yards. This area is now part of the city. The same real estate company offered to build a two or three-bedroom independent house in the plot as per our suitability, and some of us got the houses constructed. My wife and I preferred a two-bedroom home with open spaces all around.

After the house construction, we performed a housewarming ceremony. My parents came from the village and attended the function. My brothers and sisters attended with their spouses. My brothers and brothers-in-law are all working in different towns.

My father brought a mango plant from our mango grove and planted it in the side open yard of the house on this day.

Ours is a remote village without a transport facility. In the village, we had a ten-acre mango grove on the banks of the adjoining stream. There were several mango trees with different tastes, sweet and sour. We leased the mango grove yearly, and the lessee sent us three bags of sweet and sour mangoes in summer. He sold the rest of the mangoes in the town market. My parents kept some sweet and sour mangoes and distributed the rest to all our brothers, sisters, relations and friends.

My mother prepared pickles of raw mangoes. My mother was an expert in preparing the mango pickles. The pickles were tasty. She distributed her special ginger mango pickle to all our brothers, sisters and neighbours.

Today, I am 60. My parents are no more. My children are married and working in different countries. All the children and grandchildren came to India to celebrate my 60^th birthday. The children planned to celebrate in a 5-star hotel. The children also invited relations and friends to the function.

For a birthday celebration, it is customary to cut a cake. The children ordered a three-tier cake, and my children requested everyone to assemble near the table for the “Birth Day Cake Cutting”. My wife was standing beside me. I was about to cut the cake.

My wife asked me to wait a minute. She said, “I have  a surprise.”

Suddenly, everybody was silent and wanted to discover my wife’s surprise. She brought a bag and opened it. It was full of sweet mangoes. She took one big mango, put it on the table, cut it, and offered me with all her sweet love and affection. Then she provided sweet mangoes to all present.

With the sweet mango taste, I felt my father was blessing me from heaven. I bowed before my parent’s photo, which my wife brought to the hotel. I silently thanked my wife for reminding me of my childhood days. She knew this mango cutting from her mother-in-law on my birthdays. Later on, with the recent culture of cake cutting, everyone forgot about mango cutting.

Everyone there appreciated the delightful taste of the mango and started enquiring about its speciality.

Then my wife told them, “These are from the mango tree from our house. My father-in-law planted the tree on the occasion of our housewarming ceremony. Today, the mango plant has grown into a big tree, giving fruits.”

She continued, “The plant is 30 years old, and we still enjoy its fruits. It is all the blessings of our father-in-law.”

My father had a unique process of celebrating my birthday in the village.

The lessee was to send us a basketful of sweet mangoes on my birthday. All my brothers and sisters waited for this day. I have two brothers and two sisters, and I am the middle.

On that particular day, in the evening, my father called all the family members together and took a big-sized mango, cut a piece length-wise from the top to the kernel about an inch in width and tapering. With all his affection, he fed it to me as a mark of my birthday celebration. My birthday falls in the first week of June. He celebrated my birthday with this sweet mango cutting.

My brothers and sisters were jealous of me for this special treatment with mango. Their birthdays fell in the months of winter and rainy seasons. After my birthday celebration, everyone in the family could relish mangoes.

Everyone said my father blessed me with these sweet mango fruits. Everyone assembled there was happy. My grandchildren from the USA were thrilled as they do not get mangoes in the USA. The climate in the USA is not suitable for growing mango trees.

Then, the cake-cutting program went on. The relatives and friends all had a  sumptuous dinner and left, thanking my father for the sweet mango.

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