A Bit of Green Magic
Mango trees grow wild here. So do fig trees and the ‘black plum’ or jamun trees.
A thoughtful crow, with a seed in its beak may drop that seed in a bit of earth. The winds sing it to sleep, rain waters it and the sun shines benevolently down on it. When the monsoons clear, and leave, a tiny trembling leaf has emerged, gazing at the world with tremulous eyes and hope in its heart.
Like the mango tree, the fig, banyan and peepul trees grow wild, too. They fill up nooks and crannies with a bit of light, a bit of green, a bit of magic.
The leaves that emerge after the rains leave, are so tender that they can fold up and die in a strong wind. But the parent tree protects them till they can fend for themselves.
And now, the props on this stage in the theatre of life change. It is flowering season for the mango trees. Great big bunches of pink-fawn-tawny-cinnamon- garnet flowers have triumphantly crowned the trees in the Park, on roadsides, within buildings. The first tiny mangoes have already appeared, and they scent the air with life, love and largesse.
We pickle these first fruits: they smell of fierce, wild things, and are tart, and fleshy. Flavoured with crushed mustard seeds, chilly, salt, asafoetida and fenugreek, and tempered with mustard, or sunflower-seed oil, they smell like love, and heaven.
The wild fig trees will follow soon: and among the leaves that are tightly bunched up, will appear glorious bright crimson fruits. There will be three, or more of them, within a nest of leaves. Sometimes, there are entire avenues beside which grow these rows of trees. A little later, and these have ripened, and fallen, and the roads are covered in their flesh and tiny seeds, and then the wind wafts these away, to find new homes, new places, new spaces.
Be careful, though, while walking beneath the wild jamun, or Black Plum trees. Their flesh and rind are colour-fast, and may stain your clothes and skin. But if you know, or have, in your garden, a stand of these trees, consider yourself lucky. These fruits are known to improve hemoglobin count, and are excellent sources of vitamin C and iron. They are good for our skin, help in the management of diabetes, and are powerful immunity, and heart-health boosters.
There is a pulsating raw energy, and a source of strength in this growth, these flowers and these fruits, and the Sun that powers them, that cannot be replicated by anything canned or bottled. It will be good if we come to realise, before it is too late, how much we owe to them.
In the epic, Mahabharata, there is this magical vessel that fills up with food whenever it is required, called the ‘Akshaya Patra’. The ‘cornucopia’ is a similar concept.
That’s what Nature is: a horn of plenty, and a vessel that never becomes empty. Pray God, that we always have eyes to see it, and a heart to feel her gracious abundance. In a time and space ravaged largely by man’s depredation and greed, where a few who can, are checking out other planets to pollute, I hope we can remember and get our children to realise what we have…while we still have it.
