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Fruits of a Mumbai summer. A three act play. #EatBetter

By May 12, 2022July 12th, 2024No Comments

Act 1: Jamun tai 

Jamun tai

‘Jaamuuuun. Jaamuuuuuuun.’

I heard the plaintive cries coming from down the street around noon yesterday and ran to our drawing room window and looked down. I saw an elderly lady carry a basket of jamuns on her head. The dark purple coloured seasonal berry which comes to markets across  India for very short while during summer. Something I had never given a second glance before. This year was different.

‘I want you to have 4, 5 jamun a day. Sprinkle kala namak on it. It is good for diabetics’, said a whatsapp from Dr Ria Ankola, my dietician, a few days back.

Jamun is not something that ‘regular’ fruit-sellers in Vandre (Bandra) keep. The ones who sell kiwis, tangerines and dragon fruits. They are sold on standalone thelas (hand pulled carts). I doubt if any of the online stores that K uses stock them They are too pleb.

I am all for supporting small businesses but after the pandemic have got used to calling things in from shops or from vendors walking down our street and rarely step out to the market. I asked #kayteecooks, our newish morning cook, if she could get jamuns for me from the market. She shook her head and said, ‘they haven’t come to the market yet’.

Which is why I got so excited seeing ‘jamun tai (granny)’ and wildly gesticulated at the matronly figure to stop and wait for me. I bounded down the stairs with the urgency of Baby Loaf running down to the Badamis if he finds our door open.

I had never bought jamuns before. I did not know how much they cost. How much to buy. I clutched a couple of currency notes in my palms as I set off on the adventure.

I came out of the lobby to see that Jamun tai had walked through the building gate, parked herself and her basket by the construction material there and was waiting for me with a smile.

‘How much?’

‘Rs 500 for a kilo.’

‘Oh, I do not want so much. How about 100g?’

‘That is too less.’

‘Why don’t you show me how much 250 g are.’

I have only two bathas. 500 g and 1 kg. (I had no idea what she was talking but in retrospect I feel that she was talking of weight measures).

‘Thik hain. Give me 500g.’

‘How long do they last?’

‘3,4 days.’

‘In the fridge?’

‘Yes.’

I went to pay her and realised that I had carried Rs 150. I ran back and got another hundred. After paying all surge, convenience and packing charges in apps, I do not like to bargain with local vendors. In any case, thanks to K our quartermaster, most of our money goes to big corp.

‘Cool it in the fridge and then enjoy’, she said as she flashed a toothy smile and gave me the bag of jamuns which seemed a bit fuller than what she had first weighed them out.

I walked back in, entered the lift and joined a delivery boy who was waiting to go up. I turned around and saw jamun tai walk in with her basket! Noone wears a mask anymore.

‘Which is the button for the second floor? And the fifth?’

Darn, she actually comes into our building, I realised. I needn’t go down the next time!

I later gave the jamuns a suspicious look after I chilled them and took out 5. 

Jamun, like lau and karela (I eat both now), fell in the category of ‘things mom eats and I would not be seen eating.’

I had tried jamuns once as a kid in Calcutta and it felt as if my cheeks had been sucked in by their astringency and had shrivelled up. Never again, I had sworn.

Guess what? 

I loved the jamuns this time. Chilled. With AND without kala namak (rock salt). Guess, it is an adult pleasure.

Now the task is to stop myself at 5,6 a day!

Jamun. How could I have ignored you all these years!!!!!

Act 2 Galeli bhai

Right there waiting for you


Second floor, where Jamun Tai was headed to in the morning, is where Baby Loaf and little Nimki’s Erika Mummy and Big Sister Gia stay. Later that night the bell rang with Erika coming in with a cloth bag and a casserole.
‘I’ve got you guys some steak and onion fries (which were brilliant) and a dozen mangoes. 6 ripe and 6 semi ripe.’
‘Wow! That’s some coincidence,’ I said. ‘It was just last evening that I had asked K if she would like to have mangoes and if so, I would order some.’
Because of my post covid sugar hike, which made me diabetic in March, Ria had asked me to keep a distance from my favourite mangoes. Which, if you live in Mumbai as I have for 20 years and even if my fellow Calcuttans disown me for not speaking up for the fojli and lyangra, is the Alphonso. We had not bought mangoes this year but last night it struck me that poor K might be missing them.
K ended a work zoom call, joined us and said, ‘thank you so much Erika. I was missing mangoes. The other fruit I was missing was the galeli. You know the white fleshy fruit which you bite into and the juice bursts into your mouth. I would have them as a kid in my granny’s house.’
‘You mean talgola,’ said Erika. Using the Marathi word for it.
‘Yes,’ said K. ‘I haven’t seen them this year yet.’
 ‘There is a cart selling them right by the cigarette shop at the end of our lane. I pass it by when I go for evening walks at night. We call it tal shash in Bangla,’ I chimed in.
‘How come I haven’t seen them?
‘That’s because you are in the middle of work calls when you walk. Not leading the slow life like I do.’ I quipped. 
I spotted a couple of boys and the cart when I went for a walk after Erika left. 
‘How much?’
‘Rs 200 a dozen.’
I had carried only a hundred Rupee note with me. I walked on while a lady tried to get them to bring the price down to Rs 180.
I took a few steps and turned back.
‘Give me half a dozen,’ I said tentatively. Wondering if he would say he could not count below 12 or something like that.
‘Thik hain.’
‘Cut and keep them. I will finish a few rounds and pick it up from you.’
Few being the operative word and in half an hour I was back up.
K was on a work call and I showed her the bag.
‘Wow.’ She mouthed.
‘Sorry I got only 7. Turns out I had twice underestimated the price of local Indian seasonal fruits in hipster Vandre one day,’ I said throwing my hands up in the air. 
Both Jaamun Bai and Galeli bhai had given me extras. Possibly because though chronologically an ‘uncle’, I did not bargain like the neighbourhood ‘aunties. 
I strongly believe that if you do not kids of your own, you do not think of yourself as an ‘uncle.’

‘Stop making a face little Nimki.’ When it comes to your cat friends, I am an ‘uncle’ because Baby Loaf dada and you are our sons.
Little Nimki loves to pout

‘I hope they are good. They look rather tiny.’
The galelis very good and juicy according to K, who seemed to visibly relish them. She also said that she had not realised what a cumbersome affair eating them was.
‘You have to peel the yellow membrane of each with your nails and then eat.’
‘So what happened when you were a kid?’
‘My mama (maternal uncle) peeled and gave them to me.
‘Hmm. I had them as a kid. I do not remember peeling them.’
‘Possibly your mom peeled them for you.’
Sums up the story of the ‘only child in the family’ in a Parsi family and ‘spoilt son’ in a Bengali one.
Galeli. Gujarati. Tal gola. Marathi. Taal shaash. Bengali. 
A rose in any language.

14 May update: Two days after I wrote the story, mom in law came to visit us bearing jamoon and galeli and I just spotted her peeling them for us. Coincidence much?

Act 3 Hapoos Mai

This Bengali could be an Englishman in New York, but his loyalties
lie with the hapoos and not fojli when it comes to mangoes


‘I bought talshash for Kainaz. Are they all right for me? Not that I am crazy about them, but thought I will ask.’
‘It is fine. Just have fruits before dusk both of you,’ replied Dr Ria to the whatsapp I sent her when I was walking back after picking up the galelis for K.
‘What about mangoes,’ I messaged. Chance pe dance, as we say in Mumbai. Trying my luck.
‘Yes. You can have them thrice a week. One at a go.’
I danced all the way back home as if I was Kapil Dev at Lord’s in ’83.
K and her family love alphonso mangoes, They ‘inhale’ them as kids today said. 
I was not much into mangoes till mamma, my maternal grandmom in law passed away.
Mysteriously enough, I was besotted with mangoes and cheese within a few months of her passing. The two things she really loved. It was as if she had passed on her cravings to me, along with the responsibility of looking after her granddaughter who was the centre of her life. The only difference was that mamma, like any Parsi granny, was into Kraft cheese tins, while my tastes in cheese are more esoteric. 
When it comes to mangoes though as I said earlier, I am firmly team alphonso like mamma was.
#NoorBanuCooks had cut a mango in the evening for K and kept it in the fridge after #KayteeCooks had cut two for K’s lunch.
K had the galelis last night. I had the alphonso. 
And that Baby Loaf, is what a happy ending is all about in real life.
Conversations with Baby Loaf last night.
My first born.

 PS: Erika the mangoes were super. 

PPS: Ria, don’t worry. I will stick to ‘one, thrice a week.’ We were naughty last night, but only before dusk from now on.

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