HELL WEATHER HEAVEN FRUIT

I know what you are thinking! You are thinking about the title I have given to this blog. Yes, it is absurd. Actually the last few days have been hellish in terms of weather: hot, dry and disgusting. We had been waiting for the rains to come and wet us and the wait has been agonisingly long this year. Generally monsoons hit this part of the country in Jun third week but this year even 04 Jul was bone dry. But today as I was driving to work, there was a sudden appearance of clouds, black clouds, towards the northern foothills and by the time I reached office, a heavy downpour had surrounded me and there were pools of water and splashes all around.

I was at once reminded of my teens in Nainital where I mostly grew up and studied. I was reminded of hot, humid days spent in my childhood without electricity and then on the other end of the spectrum, heavenly weather of Nainital as also various fruits locally available free of charge! A lot of contradictory things from the past flashed through my mind today. Hence, the title.

As a teenager those days when we did not have ready to eat, fast food, canned juices and preserved eatables, I looked forward to eight fruits in a year. They formed a real variety. These were: Custard apples in summers, mangoes in summers, raspberries in summers and monsoons, guavas generally all round the year, wild, mini muskmelons in monsoons, sugarcane in winters, kaafals (I don't know their botanical or English name) in I don't remember which particular season and black berries in monsoons. All free and all in abundance and in purely organic state.

Kaafals were always a great attraction, something which we cherished and fought with one another to lay our hands upon as they were in short supply. They still attract me whenever I visit Kumaon Hills. They are succulent and sweet and tangy in taste. See the photo below.

You can be anything and you may live in any part of the world, take it from me, you will always be pulled to your roots and also to things which are simple and plain in nature.