The Hindu Business Line : Fruity delight on summer evenings

LITCHI has a brief season of about 10 days in Borivili with bhaiyas from Bihar selling the luscious fruit at street corners towards the last week of May. The fruit with its dark red, prickly skin always reminds one of Dehra Dun, Ruskin Bond and the large number of litchi trees with which he grew up. The skin has to be peeled to get at the sweet, grey flesh which has to be sucked at leaving a dark brown seed, and this writer ranks it above the Alphonso from the Konkan district of Maharashtra.

Whiling away long, pleasant summer evenings on one of the stone benches lining Linking Road, one came across a bhaiya with a basket of litchis. "Kya bhav diya (What's the quote)," one inquired and the reply was swift, "Rs 35 for 24 litchis. Muzzaffarpur ka maal hai (the litchis come from Muzzaffarpur)." That looked a bit stiff and one backed off and the bhaiya realised it. "Achcha saab, kya bhav doge; Rs 24 for 24 litchis," came the counter-offer and the deal was clinched, as in the previous years litchis never cost less than Rs 12 for a dozen. One immediately started on them when Lachman Singh came along. He sampled a litchi, spat it out rather imperiously and added, "bakwas maal hai (the stuff is bad)." But his grand-daughter, Utsav, was having a good time. One had to help her peel the skin though she was clever enough not to swallow the seed. Lachman and the bhaiya got into a wasting dispute over the deal struck by me with Lachman elaborating on the excellence of litchis grown in Dehra. The bhaiya was just a trader trying to sell litchis at prices the market could bear and was neither for nor against Dehra litchis. He said as much to Lachman Singh, who was not in a good mood. He was upset over my purchase as a litchi parcel had arrived from his relatives at Dun.

Ruskin Bond was not around to help set apart litchis from Muzzaffarpur and Dun and decide on the finer points. Lachman did not block further sales and in about 30 minutes the bhaiya had sold the entire stock. He kept back a few litchis which he offered free to Utsav. "Mera poti (grand-daughter) bhi gaon mein hai," the fellow mused pulling at a beedi. He wanted to patch up with Lachman and told his as much. "Bhai, aam pe paisa nahin hai. Sab dhunde mein ghus gaye hain (There is no money in selling mangoes as the business is crowded )," he told Lachman. Before the bhaiya went his way, Lachman agreed to smoke a beedi offered to him and the evening regained its flavour.

About as short a time is taken by the kadambam flowers strung by Tamil women, some of them live in Malad, string the aromatic flowers into garlands and wait around Borivili station while a few can be seen near Linking Road. Their clientele is mainly women from the South as others do not particularly relish it. They either stick it with clips to their braided hair or offer it to gods. Some of the regular customers are the Tamil women sweepers who keep the co-operative housing societies in Borivili clean. They can be seen early in the morning walking with plastic sacks on their backs, searching for solid waste in dust bins. At around 7 a.m. they collect at one end of Linking Road sorting out the waste before the municipal van comes along. They break for tea and a bit of gossip at about 7.30 a.m. before trudging to their shacks on either side of Gorai Road. Their husbands generally do nothing.

A mozham (an arm's length) costs Rs 2 and Lachman Singh takes my advice while buying a garland for his wife and Utsav. Usually one prevents Lachman from haggling as the women have to pay haftas to the police and the local goondas to ply their trade.

In recent days, the police have taken to snatching the weigh scales from the poor vendors crowding the road opposite Borivili station in a sadistic attempt to kill business. But the resourceful lot have got over it by doing business without any weigh scales. They pack vegetables in quarter and half kilo packets and lug it around for rushing customers, which also helps in escaping the speeding municipal and police vans. In another 10 days, there will not be any litchis, kadambams or summer evenings. Like there will not be anymore a fun-loving, harmless Srikant for his friends in Mumbai like Giri, Govardhan and this writer. The litchis, kadambams and summers will come back next year with memories of Srikant.

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