Summer evenings during childhood were all about breaking out the door of our house and rushing into the garden as soon as the clock ticked 5!

Mine was a cheerful neighbourhood with plenty of kids. So finding people to play hide ‘n’ seek, cricket, pitthu, basketball…was never a problem.

But our all time favourite thing to do was to fetch raw mangoes from the huge mango tree in our backyard!! It had been there ever since I could remember, and most certainly long before that too.
It grew every year.... getting taller, standing there with an almost majestic pride, dutifully serving us with perfectly shaped green, crisp, zingy mangoes season after season after season.

Unfortunately none of us possessed the agility nor skill to climb the height of the tree and pluck the fruit with our bare hands.... so we relied on our (ahem!) aim….a la sholay ishtyle!! :) so whoever could mark the fruit with a stone, stick or a shoe and break it, would be given the much sought after title of “nishaanebaaz”!! :) (cant remember if I ever got one though…sigh!)

We loved that big old mountain of a tree….but it royally pissed us all off when the number of ‘reachable’ mangoes would begin to trickle down to barely a handful…coz that would sign an end to our quest…as we couldnt possibly reach the rest of the sinfully delicious fruits!!! (and the worst part was…we knew they weren’t sour!!! :-s )

Well, all that changed a few seasons later when the summers gave way to an unusually raucous monsoon!! And on one fateful day when the ground couldn’t take it any more and the roots were already weak enough…a thunderous storm finally dislodged the withering hulk!

We kids had a field day snatching all the pretty green babies as fast as our tiny hands could go…fearing that if we dint hurry, they would begin to rot!!

But once the feast was over it dint take long for us to begin missing that ol’ mammoth of a king!! The storm had unknowingly brought with it an end to an era of finger licking yummy mango chutnies, pickles, papads, rassams and other mouth watering dishes…which used to be the highlight of our yearly summer holiday cuisine!! No cool shade in the blistering heat…no tangy fragrance…no rustling of dried leaves…and god!! no strong branches to hang our swings!!!! Yup….we sure missed the entire span of him!

Although ma did try to fill the void by planting a gulmohar, but the damned thing shed like a dog and was soon removed!! And since then no other has ever taken the place of the royal leader.

The empty space still gapes at me and reminds me of the times long gone….