Magnolias Book Launch at Full Circle, Delhi

Monkeys, Madcaps and Mayhem

Just in case you missed seeing this video on our youtube channel :), here is Devashish Makhija, filmmaker and writer of When Ali Became Bajrangbali, in action!

I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon: Winners and a round-up!

The mango blogathon has come to an end. In case you missed writer Malavika Shetty's write-up on her mango story, here it is. Not to forget Ajanta Guhathakurta's delightful illustrations which have featured across the posts.

The book, ladies and gentleman, has arrived and it looks delicious. You can place your orders on our website. Like all our picture books, it's available in nine languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali.

Vijaysree Venkatraman (read her entry here), bloggers Sandhya, R's Mom and Itchingtowrite are the winners of this blogathon and they will receive a free copy of The Sweetest Mango.:)

Congratulations!

All participants are entitled to a special discount: you can buy the book (Rs.135) for Rs.100. (Sweet deal, no?) Write to us at tulikabooks@vsnl.com to avail the offer.

We did a round-up of some entries earlier. Here's the second lot, for those who want to indulge in different mango moods:

"Summer vacations meant a lot of things to me as a child, but most of all, it meant Mangoes with a capital M," writes Sandhya in her post, Mango Memories. 

Fiddler on the Roof goes down her mango memory lane in Mango Diaries.

"...sometimes it made me wonder if the mangoes really tasted that good only because Appa is so perfect with the knife," says Padmashri in her post, Mangoes.

Varsha offers up a delightful recipe along with her mango memory in her post, Mango thieves.

"We would find stones, long sticks and bougainvillea stems long and strong enough to bring down even the most reluctant mango," writes Saudha in her post, Mango Season.

Then there's R's Mom's inspired mango post, aptly-titled Missing the Mango Mania. And finally, Shruti Rao's mysteriously titled From Darkness to Light. And Pinashpinash's Milkertainment.

This entry was a day late, but the refrain Mangoes, mangoes, mangoes... made us put it up with the rest.:)

We also received a couple of responses by email. This first is from R Akila:

Mango-the king of fruits does reminisce me of my childhood days. My summer holidays were mostly spent in karaikudi (my grandma's place)where all my cousins meet every year. The Mango orchard in the backyard was the place where we hang out. Climbing the mango tree was always fun because the winner is blessed with an extra mango."Thoratti" a long wooden stick with a hook was the equipment used to pluck the ripe ones. A Chettiar's garden is incomplete without this equipment. Sneaking into the "ukkuranam"(Chettinad term for store room)to taste the various mango recipes was my daily ritual. 

To list a few of my grandma's recipe "Maavathal,maavadu,avakkai oorugaa,thanneer Panthal ooruga". As I write I can feel my tongue tingling to taste all these mango stuffs. When I compare my childhood days with my kids,I really pity them for their life is too mechanical and cyber oriented.All they know about mango is that it's a yummy summer fruit which can be bought in fruit shops. Nowadays Mangoes from known sources are the best way to enjoy the fruit to avoid repenting later. I would always advice each individual to maintain a small garden in their houses and grow the fruits and vegetables the organic way, to get rid of the health hazards caused by the fertilizers.

And here's a poem about the mango season from Srividhya Venkat:

Summer is here!  Summer is here!

What would you like to do?

When summer is here, holidays appear

There is fun to last all day through.

Waking up late and lazing in bed,

Playing with friends at will,

Swimming and tennis keep the fun ahead.

But with one thing we never get our fill.

And that is the king who makes us weak,

We never get enough of him,

Different colours and varieties we seek,

King Mango is our whim.

Sometimes sour, sometimes sweet,

Sometimes orange, sometimes green,

Eat them all – Oh! What a treat!

Gives us pleasure we’ve never foreseen.

With a mango, there’s plenty to do

Sweet or spicy – you make your choice

Milkshake, barfi, ice-cream, fondue

Or pickle, sambar, chutney –whatever you rejoice!

So surrender to the King once again,

Let your taste buds enjoy

When summer is over, King Mango will disappear,

So go on – enjoy mangoes- don’t be coy!

Thank you everyone, for participating!

The Sweetest Mango

There's been an great response to the mango blogathon – thanks for participating! The blogathon closed yesterday and on Thursday, we will be putting up a post rounding up responses we've got. On Friday, we will announce the selected participants who will receive copies of the book, The Sweetest Mango, written by Malavika Shetty and illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta.

Today, we have a very special post from writer Malavika Shetty on her mango memories:

The mango, for me, epitomizes the tastes, textures, smells, and colours of childhood summers. It reminds me of hot afternoons sitting under the cool shade of mango trees sucking on the sweet, juicy mangoes that I had just plucked off the trees in my village in Karnataka. It reminds me of the summer holidays and of eating mangoes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in between because there was no school to go to the next morning and only the rhythm of the long summer days to follow. The fruit brings back to me memories of hot, sticky days when the colour of mango juice was a semi-permanent stain around my mouth. It reminds me of the look on my grandmother’s face when I came home each day from my mango adventures with my clothes streaked with mango juice.

The fruit is also intertwined with my summers in Bombay – the last few days of school, when the excitement of the coming holidays was in the air, and the aam papad wallah did brisk business just outside the school walls. The few saved-up coins I used to buy the tiny layered aam papad rectangles was money well spent as I swung on the gate of my apartment building with my friends after school sharing and savouring the sweet-tangy concoction.

The fruit reminds me of the colours and crowds at the weddings in city, during the wedding season, where mango leaves festooned the wedding halls and aamras was the eagerly-awaited delicacy at the end of a heavy meal. I remember eating spoonful after spoonful of the thick, sweet mango pulp flavoured with cardamom, until I could eat no more.

Even now, living in a different place, where mangoes are rare and the ones that I find just do not taste the same, I find myself trying to recreate the smells and tastes of childhood summers. I make mango shakes with vanilla ice cream, I eat pizzas with mango toppings, I enjoy mango lassis made out of canned mango pulp, and I book my tickets to go as soon as I can to where the mangoes of my childhood still hang invitingly from lush trees.


Malavika Shetty

On Mango Service

We've had inspired entries for the blogathon and after sharing some delicious aamras (friends of Tulika *hint*) with us at work, Sandhya shares her mango story...

Mangoes always remind of my little cousin – who is now not so little anymore. When we were growing up in seventies Madras, our backyard was full of mango trees. Smooth banganapalli, delicious eaten green, scrumptious eaten golden yellow. 

Me when I was 15

The fruits would lie piled up on hay in the store room, with our grandmother checking on them every day, turning them this way and that, rescuing the ones at the bottom, bringing them up for air.

During school time, we cousins lived in our own homes. Come the summer holidays, our cousins from abroad would visit and all of us congregated at our home to do ‘dingana’ as my dad would say. But whatever we did, wherever we went, the time after lunch was always spent at home, upstairs. And the time after lunch was always for mangoes.

My little cousin, all of five, and then six, seven was deputed every year to serve us our mangorial repast. And was she proud! 

My little cousin

First, she’d go to the kitchen and pick up a small round plate. Then she’d go to the store room and pick out two ripe mangoes. Then she’d wash them clean, place them on the plate, and carry them carefully all the way up to present to cousin number one. With a pussy cat smile on her face.

Then she’d go back downstairs to the kitchen, pick up a plate. The store room, pick out two ripe numbers. Wash them. Clean them. Carry them. Carefully, all the way up to cousin number two. 

Cousins one and two would then compare and contrast. They had to all be the same size or down she’d go again, balancing the rejected fruits, to pick out fresh, new ones of a size! And so, one by one, there’d be a plate with two mangoes for each.

Sometimes there’d be six of us, sometimes more. Never less.

And after the smiling service, my little cousin would sit down, push back her frock and sink her teeth into her own two banganapallis. She truly earned them. 

Every day. All through the summer vacation. 

Sandhya Rao

Reviews Watch!

“Playtime does not need any gadgetry; a little bit of imagination can work wonders,” says Shamim Padamsee on the My Grandfather’s Stick, written by Nandini Nayar and illustrated by Kshitiz Sharma. Blogger Aparna calls Stone Eggs, written by Helen Rundgren and illustrated by Soumya Menon, “a good starting point for beginner dino-lovers and yet engaging enough for more knowledgeable kids."

Tulika’s Monday to Sunday, written by Sowmya Rajendran and illustrated by Pratik Ghosh and When Ali Became Bajrangbali, written by Devashish Makhija and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan featured in Books and More magazine’s top ten picks for children. Check out Devashish Makhija does an animated reading of Kyon Hiroo Hua Hairaan on our Youtube channel. 

Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, written by Niveditha Subramaniam and Sowmya Rajendran has more fans. The book “delves beautifully into the life of a typical 12 year old, exploring her questions, doubts, joys, confusions and fears in a way each one of us would be able to relate to,” says one reviewer, while this blogger says she doesn’t remember the last time when she could identify with the mother and the daughter in a book. Another reviewer says, "Issues of gender stereotyping and sex are addressed quite subtly. Maybe with so much subtlety that even a book for adults would not have been able to accomplish. I totally recommend it to girls, mothers and even boys of that age group..."

I *Heart* Mangoes - The Stories So Far

We’ve got some Aamazing responses to the I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon so far!

In Mango Memories, Riti Kaunteya a.k.a Mamma of Twins tells us about hot summers in her grandfather’s mango orchard in Patna, and days that “began with Aam and ended with Aam.”

In An Aam Story, Arthi Anand a.k.a Artnavy writes about sitting in her garden in Vijaywada among her mother’s marigolds and spinach and planting mango seeds. 

“It did take me a while to get to the bottom of this fruit, but I'm glad I did,” says Malvika Tewari, in Meri bhi Keri, in which she talks about how she grew to love the much-coveted kaccha keri which grew in her school grounds in Navrachana, Baroda.

Vijaysree Venkatraman sent us this write-up about her summer vacations in Madurai and mangoes that weren't delicious at all:

Amnesiac Monkeys

My grandparents lived in Madurai and we visited them every summer. In the afternoons, I kept my ears open for monkeys. It was as good a way as any to pass time in this place. A distant siren would signal the break for the textile factory and shortly after my uncle would be home for lunch. After he left, the kitchen would shut down briefly. My aunt would roll out the mat and lie down for a while. When I heard that distinct clatter on the asbestos roof of the bathroom, I would always rush to the window. A familiar drama played out each time with minor variations.

They are there! On the roof of the backyard bathroom, the monkeys make their unhurried progress toward the mango tree’s shading canopy. Like a parrot’s beak its green mangoes curve into a red-tinted tip. Even when the flesh ripens to gold within, the skin stays green. Despite the poetic name, the kilimukku, the fruit is a bitter disappointment to my grandmother.

The fruits of this particular tree are stringy and tart and my grandmother has to buy mangoes in the market just like everyone else who doesn’t have a big tree in their backyard. Its delicate brownish blossoms waft to the open tank below and scent the bathwater. Grandmother doesn’t have the heart to have the tree cut down but complains about it at every chance.

The trusty Chetak is parked in the open shed. The two dogs are tied in the corner, too hot to care about anything. The postman came to the gate a few minutes ago. They did not even bark at him. One of the monkeys has reached the scooter and is making a grab at the side-view mirror, which is glinting in the sun. The dogs look on bemused.

Then this monkey joins the group for the feast. Expert but forgetful tasters, they chuck the mangoes with disdain after a few sample nibbles. The pulpy mass rolls down the roof with a muffled clatter and lands with a plop near the shed. The monkeys seem to be aiming the fruits at the dogs. Unable to take the impudence of the intruders, Caesar, the younger one, howls his head off.

Aunt goes charging into the din. The monkeys don’t look worried at the sight of her long bamboo stick. They confer and then make a jaunty exit as if they have much tastier groves to raid. I can believe that. I wonder why they come here in the first place. Surely, they can’t be as amnesiac as all that! 

Perhaps, they were as bored as I was and enjoyed a bit of drama in the afternoon. 

And Joysree Das sent us this interesting folktale about How Mangoes First Came to India:

Once upon a time there were no mangoes in India. There was not even a single mango tree. Mangoes were only found in Srilanka and that also in the garden of Ravana, the demon king.

When Ravana stole away Sita from her cottage in the Panchavati forest, he kept her in his beautiful orchard called Ashokban where there were many mango trees.Sita sat under a mango tree and wept. She only ate a few fruits that dropped from the tree when ripe, and never tasted anything else.

When Rama won the battle against Ravana and killed him and took possession of his kingdom, his monkey soldiers entered Ashokaban, and feasted themselves on the ripe mango fruits, which they had never tasted before. They threw the half eaten mangoes and the ripe mangoes into the sea, which floated and reached the coast of India. Along the sea coast mango trees grew up, and gradually mango plants were taken to other places of India.

This is how mango came to India. We have to thank the monkey soldiers of Rama for it, whenever we taste the juicy fruit.

Have a mango story you want to share? Read our first post to know what we're looking for and get started! The blogathon closes on Monday, 21st May 2012.

I *Heart* Mangoes: A Tulika Summer Blogathon

Aam admirers, the I *Heart* Mangoes blogathon is here! 

Does your heart beat for the golden Alphonso, the blue-tinged Neelam, the red-green Mulgoa and the much-loved Banganapalli? Or does a rarer, lesser-known variety make you weak at the knees? Do you have a mangnificent recipe for mango barfi? Or an under-the-mango-tree memory (or conspiracy!) that you'd like to share?

Here's what you have to do: 

Put up your mango story on your blog. If you don't have a blog, you can write to us at tulikabooks@gmail.com with the subject I *Heart* Mangoes. We'll put it up on the Tulika blog.

Your piece can be short, long, sweet or spicy. It can be a trip down memory lane, an interesting piece of family lore or forgotten local history – all involving mangoes, of course. What?! You have a story and a recipe?? Bingo :) It can even be a little folktale you've heard. (But don't be lazy, ok. Means, if you thought Mango myth = Ganesh x 3 super slow jogs around parents and 1 irritated sibling on peacock, think again.)

Post pictures if you can. Add fun details. And (this is important) send us the link to your blogpost. You can paste it in the comments section at the end of this post or send us an email with the link.

End of the fortnight, we'll collect interesting responses and post samplings with links to original posts/publish other responses received via mail.

Selected participants will win copies of the forthcoming wordbird picture book, The Sweetest Mango, written by Malavika Shetty and illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta.


That's it. Let's roll with the mangas!