Ghosts in the mango orchard

I am most certain it was summer of 1987.

There were lots of kids in the neighborhood. Unni, Kuttan, Rajani, Raju, Babiechi etc etc.

Ammu and her little sister were in elementary school.

Summer times used to be splendid with lots of fun/friends/games/swimming. 

One of the fondest memories of summer time was about a mango orchard in the neighborhood.

There were about 20 mango trees there.

Each mango tasted very different.

At first, Ammu couldn't believe that there could be that many varieties of mangoes.

There were very tiny mangoes and very big mangoes.

Sweet mangoes and sour mangoes.

Green mangoes, red mangoes and yellow mangoes.

Mangoes which had worms inside all the time, mangoes which didn't even have a spot on those.

Her dad used to tell her that no one could abuse mangoes in front of a Malayalee because it was their fruit - king of the fruits.

After a thunderstorm  or a wind in summer, lots of mangoes used to drop from the trees .

All the kids in the neighbourhood used to wait for the rain to stop because their mothers wouldn't let them run to pick the dropped mangoes without an umbrella.

There was an old lady in that house which was in the middle of this orchard, but nobody knew her name.

She was muthassi for all(grandma).

She was not at all a regular grandma.

She was like  witch, very short tempered and always used to carry a stick with her.

She lived in that big house all alone.

She had grey hair as long as Ammu can remember(May be she had black hair at one point in her life)

She was a character.

May be 70 years old at that time.

No drama.

Rumor had it that she used to have a drunkard husband and she did some black magic on him and he changed totally and became the god loving most respected person in the town later.(Some say it was not black magic but she did beat him in to pulp once)

Most of the people hated her anyway.

She had this peculiar smell of rasnadi podi(some herbal medicine) mixed with coconut oil emanating from her hair all the time.

She never smiled.

Her skin was kind of very much wrinkled.

She didn't accept help from anyone.

She had kids and grandkids but we never saw anyone visiting her.

Every day she used to get ready in the morning to goto the nearest fish market

and would bargain for the best fish.

She told us that we could pick mangoes from every tree but one.

The tree which was at the end of that huge land.

Because that area is her family's graveyard and all the people died have been buried there

and their ghosts were wandering around there!!

So never go near that mango tree or else.....

Most of the kids didn't even look at that direction let alone go there as they didn't want to stumble upon any demons or evil spirits. No one even questioned why the ghosts only wandered around that tree.

Year later Ammu would find out why the old lady made up that story.

This particular mango tree was very rare and special. Mangoes from that tree were the sweetest and  the old lady knew she couldn't beat the kids in the race to pick the mangoes.

So it was her trick so that that the kids wouldn't go there and she could splurge on all the mangoes by herself.(I bet she was not diabetic).

In retrospect, it all makes sense. 

Good memories, lot to laugh about, taste of mangoes even now in the tongue!