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I visit a mango orchard in Uttar Pradesh--my birth state.  Almost all, but a few trees had been harvested. They stood still, exhausted but happy after a bumper crop. The few which still bore the almost ripe chausa mango appear like a woman in full term. The fragrance of the leaves, the scent of the ripeness still on trees reach me with the light breeze caressing my being, all of it intoxicating. I am transported to my childhood home in Kanpur.

We lived in a huge 3-storey house built by my grandfather. He had a green thumb and an immense love for fruiting trees. One because he loved fruits and two because he loved to light a fire each night during winter months, in our cozy fireplace and needed firewood. Our house had a mini    orchard. There were 5 mango trees, 4 lemon trees of different varieties, 1 pomegranate, 1  sweet lime, a chandan tree and a neem tree. A bougainvillea shrub, 2 gulmohar trees, 2 ashoka trees, chameli, kamini, lilies, roses, and bela . . .. Once in a while there would be a grape vine winding up our balcony from the ground floor with a bumper  translucent green offerings.

We, as children, were responsible for guarding the fruits on all these trees from parrots, squirrels and even children from the street. Sometimes from our own selves too. 

Now I live in an apartment I have two lemon plants in pot and a few flowering ones too like champa, bela, lilies, roses etc. Today my one lemon tree has one lemon and the other has two lemons growing.  I am overjoyed as if I have given birth to my own. One champa flower and I rush to take a picture. When the bela flowers blooms, I meticulously collect them in a platter, keeping them inside my house for the fragrance to spread.

Last night I dreamt of my Kanpur house. I drifted past the Bougainvillea shrub at the entrance right till the last mango tree at the fringes of the house; I hugged each tree, crying when I reached my favourite mango tree at the corner of the house behind the lily pond. I climbed the sides of the pond and thanked this tree for the joy it gave us for more than 30 years. I apologized to all trees for not having saved them or taking them with me when we left the house. I sat there with them until my alarm went off.

Loaded mango tree—
reminisce of my lost home
baggages of the past

(c) Shubhra
September 12, 2021

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