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.
