Viboothi Pazham - Sacred Ash Mango

There is a mango tree at home which, by the grace of God, has quite a good yield every year.

In fact I have a strong suspicion that God has a big stake in that fruit, because it tastes like viboothi!!! Yes. I know it irks my mother no end, but unfortunately, my dad and I have the same opinion in this case.

This fruit in contention, is quite bulky. It has a good shape to it. Nice color too. But the proverb about not assuming books to be good just because they have some fancy cover, holds good in this case. The fruit is high in fibre too. But no one has been able to discern its taste and classify it as sweet or sour or bitter etc. But I repeat, it sure tastes like the sacred ash.

And the best part is that, for all the street urchins in my 'hood, this tree probably offers them the best summer 'time-pass'. Day in and day out, you can find these kids in packs of 3-6 trying to steal the mangoes. While we have no objection to the stealing of the mango, the trouble is that, these kids could extend their stealing service to other items in the house.

Moreover, they throw stones to get the mangoes to fall down and this stone could end up injuring someone - directly or otherwise.

So, we call up some of the helping hands at home - usually the car cleaning kid and his buddies - and have the mangoes plucked at regular intervals. The picture you see here is a sample of the mangoes that were made to detach themselves from the branch of the tree.

I am planning to give these to some of my friends at work. And within a week or so, I will find out how many of them continue to be my friends!