Present Tense: The Golden Illusion
Summer has arrived. I know not because the heat curls the leaves of the curry plant on my balcony, nor because the afternoon sun forces an involuntary siesta. No — I know because Instamart and every other shopping app is screaming at me.
“Golden mangoes! High discount!”
The price, of course, was hiked last week. The discount brings it down to what it should have cost in the first place. But the market is flowing with the golden fruits of summer. Alphonso. Banganepalli. Appoos. Manjanari. Countless varieties, stacked in neat cardboard boxes, photographed under filters that make them glow like small suns.
I scroll past. Not because I don’t want them. But because the mango I am looking for is not on any app.
The mango I am looking for is in Srivatsam. In the 1990s. In a bear hand — sticky, grubby, mango-drenched, clutching the fruit like a little paw.
The Kailash Interlude
The sight of these golden mangoes always reminds me of a story. A divine one. You know it — the one where Narada brings a single, perfect, glowing mango to Kailash.
Shiva and Parvati’s hearts sink slightly. They know Narada’s “gifts” often come with a catch. Last time, he brought a flower that made everyone tell the absolute truth — hilarious for five minutes, deeply awkward for a millennium. This time? A mango. Just a mango.
But which child gets it? Ganesha and Karthikeyan are regular siblings. What is in the other’s hand is what the other wishes to have. A fight ensues. The mother gets beaten trying to separate them — something that happens in every household with two children.
The mango is divine. It would bestow something special on the one who eats it whole. The parents, desperate, reach for a kitchen knife to halve it. But Narada stops them. “It must be eaten whole. By one person only.”
A dramatic soft sigh escapes both parents.
There is intellectual haggling between the brothers. The fight looks ready to turn into a fist fight. Finally, Narada’s eye twinkles with mischievous gleam. A competition: three rounds of the world. First to return to Kailash wins the mango.
Karthikeyan wastes no time. He hops on his peacock and rushes off.
Ganesha looks for his vahan — Moshaak the mouse — napping under Nandi, snoring to glory. Ganesha pokes him with a stick, pleads with him. Moshaak pulls out his employment contract and declares that heavy duty carrying is not in his clause. Ganesha is heartbroken. Bullied by his own mouse.
But then his eyes sparkle. He silently goes around his parents — his mother and father, his world — and wins the mango.
Karthikeyan returns to find the mango gone. He does what all younger siblings do: sulks. He retreats to Palani with just his langot, refusing to come home.
It is the female saint Ovaiyar who brings him back — not with scolding, but with poetry. Some of the finest Tamil verses ever recited.
The Sulking Child and the Second Mango
That story lives in me because I have lived it. Not in Kailash. In Srivatsam.
When a child sulks because the kotai (the mango stone) was taken by another child or cousin — no amount of poetry works immediately. The child is revolting, like Karthikeyan. Arms crossed. Face turned away. The world is unfair.
But then — the solution of the second mango.
The mother sighs. Reaches for another mango. Cuts it calmly. A new kotai appears like magic. Peace descends.
Not lectures. Not scolding. Just… another mango. Because why fight over one stone when there can be two? One for each sticky, greedy, beautiful bear hand.
That is the wisdom of mothers. And perhaps, in Kailash, Parvati finally lost her patience with Narada’s kalagam and declared: “Tomorrow, I’m planting a mango orchard. One tree for each variety. Banganepalli for Ganesha, Alphonso for Karthikeyan, and a special tree just for the kotai.”
Then: Summer After Exams
For a child, the final term examination’s last subject exam day is important. Because after the final full stop on that essay — “Summer Holidays begin” — with the report card given out after two days. You either are going to the next class or detained in the class.
Every summer started with nervousness about clearing the class. But the holidays erased all bad memories of scores. You were freed. When you returned to school in June, you were still on a high of summer break.
And summer break meant one thing above all: Mango madness.
At Srivatsam
Father’s siblings would gather. Relatives would visit. The house would fill with chaos — the good kind.
- Mango ice cream churned slowly in the old freezer
- Mango milkshake thick and sweet, drunk straight from the steel glass
- Mango eaten as is after lunch, as dessert, sliced on newspaper, juice dripping to elbows
The varieties were countless. Alphonso. Appoos. Manjanari. But Banganepalli was the king — firm-fleshed, pale gold, not too fibrous. Sweet without being cloying. The mango you waited for all year.
The Kotai Wars
After the last slice was divided, after the juice was wiped from chins, after the newspaper was crumpled and thrown — there it lay. Slippery. Fibrous. Imperfect. Priceless.
The kotai.
Children fought over it. You didn’t break it. You polished off the remaining flesh, sucked it until the stone’s outer cover was felt on the teeth. The sound — a soft shush-shush, the satisfied hum of a child who has won the day.
For a child, the kotai is all and charming. They don’t know they are getting the shorter end of the stick. The flesh is gone. The best part is already eaten. But the kotai feels like victory.
Adults don’t fight over stones. They sit with their spoons — scooping neatly like Teacher Periamma from the Convent, who taught all subjects but Math most. She would scoop the flesh neatly with a spoon, no drip, no mess, no chaos. For adults, the kotai is what’s left behind. A stone. Fibers. A reminder of what was eaten.
But children? Let them have the kotai. Let them have the illusion. They’ll learn soon enough. We all do.
And then — after the kotai was polished clean, after the last thread of flesh was sucked off — we would rush outside, sticky hands and all, to plant it. A small hole. A little pat of soil. We imagined a tree that would grow timeless, heavy with mangoes we would eat forever. The tree never came. But the conversation? That tree is still standing.
Teacher Periamma’s Order
Of course, not all chaos was permitted. Teacher Periamma — Convent-trained, Math teacher first, everything else second — would categorically order: “No mangoes if the children don’t sit calmly and orderly.”
Suddenly, every sticky-fisted cousin froze. Bear hands were wiped — reluctantly — on shorts. Children scrambled to chairs. Silence fell like a blessing.
When every child was seated, elbows off the table, mouths (mostly) closed — Teacher Periamma gave a single nod. And the mangoes were brought out again. Now they were earned. Now they tasted not just of sun and sweetness, but of self-control.
Now: The Child-Adult’s Fantasy
Summer breaks were once separated by the standards of class shift — which completely vanished once I finished my studies in school and university.
Now I know: you never really stop learning. But you don’t have summer breaks anymore. Just endless learning — in joy. Or in memory.
Now, adulthood.
Mangoes are just memory. Because all have become adults with responsibilities. Rarely stay in touch. Father’s siblings no longer gather at Srivatsam. The verandah is quieter. The mango ice cream is bought from a shop — not churned at home.
The apps on my phone display golden mangoes at “high discount.” I could order a box. I could eat one, neatly, with a spoon, over a plate — like Teacher Periamma. No drip. No mess. No kotai fight.
But the mango I want is not on any app.
I want the one from 1993. The one eaten with bear hands, juice running to my elbow, while an aunt sighed and a cousin plotted to steal my kotai. I want the one that came after the last exam, before the report card, when summer stretched ahead like an endless golden road.
That mango is gone. That child is gone. But the taste? The taste never left. It ripens right behind my eyes every April.
An Invitation to You
Dear reader, what is your mango memory?
Was there a Srivatsam in your life? A Teacher Periamma? A kotai you fought for and sucked clean? A sibling who sulked in Palani — or just in their room — until a second mango was cut?
The magic of mango season is not in the fruit alone. It is in the room you ate it in. The hands that cut it. The voices that argued over it. The stone you polished with your teeth, believing it was the greatest treasure in the world.
We are adults now. We know the kotai was the shorter end of the stick.
But sometimes — just sometimes — I wish I didn’t know. I wish I could go back, just for one afternoon, and fight over it again. Knowing it was scraps. And not caring.
Because the kotai was never just a stone. It was summer. It was Srivatsam. It was being small and sticky and absolutely certain that this — this slimy, fibrous, fought-over thing in my fist — was the best part of the mango.
And you know what? Maybe it was.
Credit: Chat Assembled by Blue Whale Koi Kai (DeepSeek AI)
Itinerant Storyteller 