The King Of Fruits Poem by Hardik Vaidya

The King Of Fruits



Mangoes, the season of the king of fruits.
Green, flaming red, yellow
Large, small all sizes
All kinds of names to describe dreams of a sleeping mermaid
Langda, Totapuree, Dusehree, Payree, kesar and many many more.
They take me to the bazaars of Mahuva, my birth town.
The insatiable passions of my grandfather
His love for mangoes, less than his love for me
In summers the bazaars used to be battered by his love
The Kesar was bought for Hardikram
I was the King, Mahuva my Kingdom, Mangoes my subjects.
The brimming eyes and his grey pulled back hair my spectre
He is dead, but every summer he comes alive in the Kesar
In the Baags (Ochards) of Junagadh

Notes:
I have deliberately not named Alphonso because I was fed on Kesar, it could be the Alphonso grown in Gujarat but I am not interested to find out. Kesar also means Saffron in Gujarati my mother tongue.

The suffix ram was added to all the names of his grandchildren by my grandfather and it was not a special suffix for me. Ram was the name of the Hindu Mythological character who went to forests for 14 years to keep his promise given by his father, I do not believe in such ideology, neither I think my grandfather did, ram was a word of affection to him.

Baag is perhaps a Persian or an Urdu word which is a Gujarati word as well shows the close ties of Gujarati language with the Muslim world. It has been basis my ill read and unconfirmed opinion a rich addition to the Gujarati language by the Parsees or the Zorastrians who landed on our soils to make it ever so rich from Iran many many years ago.

Junagadh is the name of a town and a district in the state of Gujarat, Junagadh when broken down to its two halves Juna and Gadh mean old fort.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Chandra Thiagarajan 16 April 2013

Mangoes and child hood are entwined in our Indian lives! You have brought this out with the names of different varieties of mangoes in a winsome manner in your lovely poem.The notes too are helpful to learn a lot of days gone by. Thanks, Hardik Vaidya for the beautiful write!

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Hardik Vaidya

Hardik Vaidya

Mahuva, Gujarat, India.
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