Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Namesake : Alfie

I was at Patel Brothers (a grocery store in my neighbourhood) the other day and I saw Alfie.The last time I had seen Alfie was in Pune about 3 years ago.After a long 26 years , the ban on his kind was removed by the USDA.

So why did I decide to call 'Alphonso' - THE mango from coastal Maharashtra - Alfie ??

- A box of 9 cost me 35$.
- Alphonso wasn't packed in the traditional wooden box with a lot of dried yellow straws (that's how I remember it !!) The Alfies were placed in a symmetric 3 by 3 matrix in a yellow cardboard box with a white webbed cloth carefully draped around each one.
- And now for the BIG ONE - Nutrient Contents printed on the side of the box

So I thought , Alphonso was Alfie. Well , I was wrong... cause after the first time the juice trickled down my taste buds the heart knew that this was apla Ratnagiri cha Amba!! (I havent tasted any other !)

Things to do in this lifetime - Climb a mango tree in the scorching heat of a Indian May afternoon one more time. As they say...The feat makes the slices sweeter.

6 comments:

Risha said...

Everybody seems to have some unique memories with mangoes :-)AS a child, I used to sit on the swing, watch the rainfall and eat mangoes. and well i climbed mango trees in childhood...yeah but sure want to do that wonce again :)

deepali said...

im sure Vedu can do that with you in India :) make sure you are there one summer at least really soon!

Ruzan said...

Nice!

PRACHEE said...

Hmm... mangoes n tree climbing..reminds me of good-old-school-days :)
Good to hav u back to civilization :)

Aadarsh Iyer said...

welcome back blogger :)

Chuns said...

good stuff kapil...brings back memories