Mango's Side of The Story

 

Has it ever occurred to you, that while you have been eating a Mango, in the very monstrous way that you always do, in what dreadful anticipation will the next mango be lying on the plate? Through his eyes, you appear no less than an Ogre, eagerly biting into the pulp again with the half chewed last chunk of pulp still in your mouth. And he, never understanding the reason for such urgency, only hopes that when it is his turn, maybe you will be satiated enough to calm down a little.

For all you know, the next Mango, let’s name him Mangu, might be a sibling of the one you are eating (possibly Mangum). Or a friend with whom he had made fun of Mangi, who was attached to the branch just below theirs and looked really deformed. Maybe ending up in your hands had been God’s way of punishing them for bothering Mangi. If this could be the reality, he shivers thinking of the fate of Manghast and Mangsaw, who made every Mango’s life difficult on the opposite side of their tree. The tree had admitted that never in his life so far he had borne hooligans like them, and made sure that they ripe before everybody else to get rid of them.

Mangu is drawn out of his chain of thought at the loud wet noise you made while slurping the trails of juice running down your arms, starting right at the elbow and ending at your wrist. For a split second he catches you looking at him with a hideous smile and he instantly understands that he had been chosen to be eaten later of the two because the Ogre liked him more. He recollects how you had sniffed at both of them turn by turn, twice, and weighed them both in your hands before making a decision. The decision to eat the better one later.

Death had never bothered Mangu. But from the beginning itself, as he listened to stories of humans from his elders on the tree, he always wondered what way of termination awaits him. He and his friends, at the eerie hours of night, exchanged horror stories mostly circulating around incidences of Mangoes being devoured to their last molecule in the dirtiest of ways. Most scandalous of them involved little human kids. He secretly prayed to God to not end up in a Kid’s hand. May he be eaten by a civilized human who will make perfectly equal slices of him, ensure least spillage of juice, lay them neatly in a plate and eat with their mouth closed.

And here he was, despite all his begging and prayers. With his friend stripped down to the seed now, he knows his time has come. He closes his eyes and dreams of running away, barely missing the grip of your hand and jumping into the plate of the most decent member of your family. One last time he prays “Agle Janam Mohe Strawberry hi Kijo”.

P.S: Whenever I eat a Mango, I ensure to administer anesthesia to it beforehand.

THE GULABJAMUN THEORY

Here I will be telling you about some situations, facts, dilemmas and treachery that revolves around a bowl full of Gulabjamuns lying unawares in a kitchen.

1. More are the number of Gulabjamuns in the bowl, lesser is the attention they attract on disappearance of a few of them.
2. More are the number of family members in your house, easier it is to gulp down a couple of Gulabjamuns on every visit to the kitchen. Doubt of thievery will be equally shared among all the members.
3. Out of the dough your mother has prepared for making Gulabjamuns, if you have made atleast one dough ball, you can officially claim having made the whole thing single handed.
4. It is always worth waking up till late in the night as long as Gulabjamuns are still not extinct. You will have many days to sleep on time.
5. Always eat the biggest and most heavenly looking Gulabjamun first. Saving it for later means losing it in the hands of another drooling human.
6. Greed for a Gulabjamun is not greed. It is need. Bare insatiable necessity.
7. A bowl of Gulabjamun is an open challenge of rivalry. Do not give in to compassionate emotions at anyone’s plight or to any puppy faces.
8. Every good thing in the world comes to an end. Never get too attached with the savoury flavours. Else you are headed to despair with the speed proportionate to your craving for Gulabjamuns.
9. Don’t be too detached with them either. It is illegal.
10. The last Gulabjamun in the bowl is most delicious of all. Be prepared with hockey sticks, swords, frying pans, anything readily available, to eliminate competition.

PS: In the loving memory of all those Gulabjamuns that were not eaten by me!

FIVE CONTINENTS

I found a beautiful notebook in Flynn’s closet one day. I knew I should not open it before asking him, so I opened it. It was empty. Nothing triggers creativity better than a notebook with coffee coloured hardbound cover, empty off-white pages, mysteriously found lying in a forgotten mess of things, and absence of husband from the house. But then I remembered the collection of all the empty notebooks and diaries I have back at my other home. I might hurt their feelings if I ditch them for this new one. Also I must take permission from my Husband before owning his things.

When Flynn was back from the office, I asked him the question. He told me that the notebook was my gift to him. So I asked him if I can take back a book also that I gifted him. He said why not! He is neither into reading books nor fond of lucrative stationery. He must be clueless why he was gifted with these things in the first place.

Later in the night, in a dream, me and my sister were having a conversation on why did I stop writing? During the discussion one of us said the words “Five continents”. Both of us stopped suddenly and looked at each other having the same thing in mind.

“Five Continents.”

“Yes, Five Continents.”

“Didi, Why don’t you write something about Five Continents?” Said my sister.

“Exactly!”

My thoughts were already running too fast and within seconds I had so much to write about Five Continents that I feared forgetting some important points if I don’t write them down immediately.

“Isn’t it surprising that I never thought of writing about such an interesting topic before?” I wondered. “It has to go on my Blog, I promised myself.”

Usually I forget all my dreams these days. But something about the Five Continents followed me till the morning. I could not recollect a single important fact that I had promised myself to write, but a promise is a promise. So let us read an excerpt from the meeting of Continents.

Scene: Around the table for half yearly Board Meeting.

East America- “I have got a major issue to report. My brother West is missing. During my last communication with him, he was worried over some of his parts disappearing. And now he is all gone. He is not even hiding in his favourite spot Bermuda. Help me get my brother back. Please.”

Euroctic- “My God! I have a similar concern. My Aunt’s Mother’s Nephew’s Wife-in-law Aisica is also missing!”

Antralia- “Last week I got a call from my secret sources and they have confirmed the information that one of us is selling the continents to Goons of The Universe. With two of us already missing, we must find out who the traitor is before the same fate lies for us. If we don’t hurry up, this could be the end of world.”

Afractica: “Goons of the Universe! I have heard horrific stories of them.”

Arcope: “Guys stop! I am sorry. But nobody told me that we were not supposed to eat a continent when hungry.”

PS: Gift your husband anything that you want to buy for yourself but is unnecessary.

PPS: Take it back after a few months for the reason that he doesn’t want it.

THE END OF NETFLIX

It was the time when there existed numerous social media platforms in the market. Applications had to come up with new feature updates frequently to survive the competition. There was an application for everything you could think of. Shopping, gaming, dating, beauty, learning, eating, fitness, medicine, travelling, you name it. People were developing obsessions with their mobile phones. New medical conditions were popping out of nowhere and diagnosis read like “Unable to stay away from the mobile phone”. Kids were Blue-Whaling themselves. Teens were living their lives on Tik-Toks. Youngsters were taking major decisions- ‘to swipe right or left?’. Media was collecting viral videos for ‘Breaking News’ segment.

Among all these technological sensations, there lived an outdated, confused girl. She did not update any applications, afraid that she would no longer be able to understand the changes. She lagged behind in getting accustomed to internet thingies.  Before she could make up her mind to check what is Orkut (and how to eat it?), the platform was outdated. Public was getting bored of Facebook when she finally signed up. Twitter decided to not co-operate with such a technically low profile girl the only time she tried to understand it. Instagram was getting installed and uninstalled from her phone at annual gaps without being used ever. Any applications with whom she was on cordial terms with were still unused because she was unsocial to such extremes that she became defensive even at the sight of app notifications. Notifications scared her and were always kept turned off for all the applications.

Despite all difficulties, things were manageable so far. But then came NETFLIX. The Demon rose to popularity very fast. So far she was only struggling with her dumb mind and inability to cope up with social media. What other people did with the internet was not her problem, and vice versa. But not anymore. Netflix was not just an application. It came into this world with a purpose, with a huge ego, and with an unquenchable thirst for attention. Soon it became a sin to not devote some part of your daily schedule to Netflix. Every person she came in contact with was suddenly convincing her to watch some 'super-awesome' thing on the application.

“But I am genuinely not interested”

“That’s Okay. But you must watch ‘Bla-Bla’ on Netflix.”

“I said I don’t like watching series.”

“But each episode is only 25000 minutes long.”

“I would prefer doing something else in those 25000 minutes.”

“But this one is really good. You will thank me later for the suggestion.”

“I said I am not interested. Please..”

“Here , have my Login ID and Password. There are only 20 seasons of ‘Bla-Bla’. Make your weekends productive. You are welcome. ”

“Where is my Gun!!”

The Girl finally declared an open War on Netflix. The application did not give up either. There was a lot of bloodshed and loss of lives. Nuclear weapons got involved. Unfair means were adopted. It became dirty like hell. But one night, it all ended. The girl was under such fury against the application that the war ended with the end of Netflix and also the whole population of Earth.

P.S: Yes, this is a serious and final warning to all!

RAISINS

Don’t tell me everyone knows that raisins are nothing but dried grapes.

Few days back me and my mother were in the kitchen and casually she mentioned that she saw raisins of black grapes in the nearby Mart. Usually I ignore things I don’t understand. But I accidentally paid attention to this sentence. Then my neurons worked fervently and decoded the series of puzzles that formed in my brain. Realization dawned upon me. Before I could hesitate to ask “Are raisins made from grapes?”

My mother felt a little ashamed of me I know. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”

She couldn’t even make fun of me.

But my colleagues did. I had to confirm that I was not the only one to not know this. Turns out I was. My fellow ladies at the office asked me counter question to assess my IQ. They asked me about life cycle of all the dry fruits and other things. They were like “Do you have any idea what you have been eating all these years?” All I know is that it is food. Their surprise sounded more like “Do you even know the last name of your Best Friend?”

The incident was however unsettling to me. I invested a lot of time to get to the root of the problem. As a part of it, I conducted a survey, asking people if they know the original form of raisins? What was shocking to know was that my younger sister knew the answer. We have grown up in the same house. I have inhabited this universe three years more than her. Where was I when she was getting this piece of knowledge?

The best thing about your friends is that they get defensive for you even when you have already proven your stupidity. When I asked the question to my Best friend (About grapes, not her last name. Just for the record, I know her last name.) and told her what happened, she said “You should have asked me first and saved yourself the embarrassment”. Then she gave me ideas for taking revenge on my colleagues. “Ask them if Pineapple grows on trees?” “Ask them all the species of dinosaurs that existed. But only after learning them yourself first.”

Why is it that I never wondered where do raisins come from? Leave raisins, I never even wondered where do babies come from. Every person seems to have thought of it atleast once when they were kids. My four year old niece has already come up with her own theories about babies (people go to babies and ask them ‘Would you like to be our baby?’) And here I am. Raisins may be just one of the thousand things I never thought about. And I am sure if I had ever tried to think how raisins are made, it is such a simple deduction. The problem is I never thought.  Do I ever wonder about anything at all? Until I am confronted with such facts, for me, raisins just are. They exist. Babies are. Somehow. And everything answers itself automatically one day. And so I continue being awesome.

P.S.: I had grapes today.