Mango Stories (contd)

When speaking of mangoes I can't help but remember one mango filled day in my childhood. This was when we were staying in Hoshiarpur in Punjab. My sister was a baby and I would have been about three and a half years old. My dad and several of his friends made plans to visit a farmhouse near Chintpurni in HP. This was peak summer. Early in the morning, the four of us, mom, dad, sis and I, piled onto my dad's Vespa scooter and were on our way. I remember standing in the front of the scooter and taking in the eucalyptus tree-filled scenery. This was an entourage of scooters... Bajajs and Vespas.... vroom vroom vroom we went...or should I say scoot scoot scoot!
The farmhouse was just a basic structure with a little tank filled with water outside and huge mango orchard. Fresh, ripe mangoes were dunked in pails of water to keep them cool. The menfolk jumped into the tank...to keep cool too. I remember taking several jumps into the tank where my dad caught me just in time after the splash. Then we sat on the charpayis and gorged on those juicy mangoes... I don't know what variety they were, but they were delicious.
On our way back we stopped at a dhaba for food and tall glasses of lassi. I, of course, was a chillar party so was only allowed to sip from my parents' glasses. I still can never finish a full glass of punjabi lassi. That day in my childhood and several others like that stand out in my memory. Those were simple times. I had never heard of a TV or cartoons... just ate, drank and made merry :)