Golden fruit

India has a large variety of fruits. Each fruit is of different shape, size and colour. Obviously they will also be having different tastes.

Today I woke up to find the delicious aroma of the national fruit of India. Not hard to guess, it was the mango. Mangoes can surely never be compared with any other fruit in the world.

Among all the other fruit delicacies, a special fruit is there which is liked by almost all Indians. Mangoes are common to find in this part of the world and are also enjoyed for their bright colour. The aroma and the flavour always lure someone or the other.

In my early childhood, I don’t know why but I didn’t like mangoes. But this season when I tasted the heavenly fruit, it took my heart away. Now without it, each meal seems to be incomplete. I definitely cannot stop myself from eating the “King of Fruits” or maybe I should say “The King of Hearts.”

I came to know that mangoes were even savoured and relished by Alexander the Great when he came to India and the Great Mughal Emperor Akbar had also planted 100,000 mango trees in Darbhanga, Bihar. The garden is referred as Lakhi Bagh.

For different people, the summer smell is different. For some summer smells like the time of beaches, while others feel it is barbecue time. But for me summer is all about the golden fruit.

(Published in The Gulf Today on June 13, 2015)