Memories of our yard mango tree

This June brings me a lot of memories of our home’s yard mango tree in Jaffna. Usually mango trees bring fruits in this month. Anyhow they start to bloom in April or May. Mango flowers are bunched and almost look like a bouquet. Jaffna is very famous for variety of mangoes. Mango lovers have given several names to those varieties. I can remember a few names which are karutha colomban, Wellai colombam, kilichondu, villatu and ambalavi etc. Youth do not bother much about mango fruits. But they are fans for green ripe mangoes. Eating a ripe mango with the combination of salt and chili power gives the heaven in the earth for most of us. Mango thieves are very popular in this season. There are solemn mango lovers who cut schools, colleges and find ways to steal mangoes from neighbors’’ houses. They are experts in extracting mangoes from the tree by throwing pebbles accurately. Sometimes these pebbles break out the window glasses of neighbors and then you can imagine what will happen next. These mango fights, mango funs and mango thieves are very famous in Jaffna.

Here I should mention about the cuckoo birds and crows. Cuckoos don’t know the mechanism of making nests. So they spend majority of their life in mango or papa trees. In April, trees get a greeny look and bloom. Until this April, cuckoos seem to be quiet and don’t make any sounds. But when April starts, they become joyful and make charming hums. We can see their romans in trees. Crows also find mango trees intending to taste their sweet fruits. As these trees are very large and shadowy, they find it comfortable to make nests there. In April or May they start to construct their nests by dried leaves and other wastages. Both cuckoos and crows are supposed to put eggs in these months. Since cuckoos have no way, they find crows’ nests to put up eggs. But the female crow will be in the nest always. Again cuckoos must find a way to cheat the crow. So male cuckoo sits in the tree where the crow’s nest is constructed and continuously makes sound to irritate the crow. Crow gets angry and goes out to chase the cuckoo. Using this opportunity the female cuckoo goes inside and puts the eggs into the nest. Since these eggs are almost same in the shape and colour, crow believes that the eggs are its own. Both these birds are black and almost similar in appearance. So the crow looks after the chick cuckoos without knowing the truth. When chick cuckoos grow up, they make different sounds from chick crows. Then crow realizes the truth and chases the chicks out of nest. The crow will almost intend to kill the chick cuckoos after it realized the truth. Anyhow they will escape from the situation. There are incidents where the cuckoo babies go inside people’s houses and then they are looked after by men. After a few days they will release the bird.

In this month, crows should have started to chase the chicks out of nests in Jaffna. In April, May and June the life will be almost going with mango trees. The nature is undividable from Jaffna life. But we have seriously lost our real life with war. Most of us are staying in Colombo, Europe, USA and of course all over the world and recalling our past. There is no doubt that you are having mango memories. And obviously we do miss them.