The little boy was their first grand child. That meant he got more affection than he probably deserved. He lived with his parents, grand parents and uncles in his father’s house. Both his parents worked, and when they left every morning, he was pampered by all the others in the house. Not to mention that he was the apple of his parents eyes. The long hours where they had to stay away from him while at work was compensated on weekends and other holidays, which they ensured was spent together as family time.

The joint family lived in a big house with many rooms; his grandparents slept in one of the rooms on the ground floor. His uncles, who were all bachelors then, in the hall/verandah. There were three rooms on the first floor too, and the boy and his parents used the small one at the far corner, overlooking the mango trees in the garden. He didn’t like afternoon naps; he would struggle to go to sleep at night if he took one. Nevertheless, during hot summer days he was usually forced by his mother to take a nap post lunch. His parents would give him a serving of summer fruits – oranges, skin peeled and deseeded, were frequent. Grapes, again seedless, also was served occasionally.

In those days, a fan was not a necessity, so a table fan was installed in the room, to be used when needed. It oscillated, trying to keep the room and the minds in the room, cool. Though he didn’t really appreciate the nap, he found some solace in that tiny bedroom on the first floor, lying next to his mother, his legs carelessly thrown on her body, listening to the music-like sound that the fan made, eyes closed, slowly drifting to a nap.

Years rolled, the boy grew up, and left them all in search of his life and got busy with it. He grew old too, and had a family of his own. On a vacation trip to his hometown one summer, he was sitting in a verandah, his mind wandering amongst the trees and plants that thrived around that house. A table fan was keeping the verandah cool. It made sounds in varied rhythms as it oscillated. The nostalgic sound of the fan took him back decades, to the days when he found solace in that tiny bedroom on first floor of his father’s house – lying next to his mother, eyes closed, slowly drifting to a nap.

These are two of the fruits I love to devour any day. Being a Malayali, I am by default supposed to be an ambassador of jackfruits – my love for them started decades before it’s recent transformation into a superfood. I love it in any form – raw ones that are cooked or fried, ripened ones. And there are different verities of this fruit (or vegetable if you want to call it that way).

But G thinks otherwise – spending two long years in Kerala during COVID, summers included, when the state is abundant with verities of jackfruits and mangoes, and literally every meal of the day has either of the two in one form or another, can make you a fruit-hater. The poor thing somehow started to hate jackfruits – the only thing that she likes, is the chips that is made of raw jackfruits (Yes! kids love anything junk!). She does like mangoes though, in all forms except the pulissery aka pazham manga koottan, that was also part of the lunch almost every day when ripe mangoes were available in the house.

Summer is also the time for school annual exams; during my school days, we had to learn ALL the lessons from the start of the academic year till the end, toil for hours together to prepare for the exams. These days, thanks to the educational reforms (yet to figure out if that is for good or worse), the syllabus is light, and at least in primary, they have only a few chapters to learn, even for the final exam.

I was given the honor of setting a maths question paper for G the other day. I have this habit of naming people and things familiar to us in her question paper to make it look a bit interesting – and in a word problem on mass, I added Kg and g of jackfruits and papayas this time, and gave her time to answer the paper. Sometime later, she comes back to me with an ear to ear wide grin and hands over the question paper, where she has replaced the jackfruit and papaya respectively with mangoes and apples!

I am learning tiny but significant lessons from G – one of them is the art of saying NO; looking back I have had innumerable occasions where I have given in and said yes; but she on the other hand, I notice, no matter how hard Mrs and Me try, if she doesn’t want something, it means she doesn’t want it – I feel a bit jealous sometimes, that I was not this adamant while growing up.

And I am also hopeful that some day, G would recognize the jackfruit for its virtues!