It was one of those days
When Ajji waited for Amu excitedly
For the yearly ritual
Of pickling the mangoes
Slowly and carefully
taking each step at once
She would go with her, to the market
To meet the lady who sits on the corner
The same place every time
Cheerfully greeting everyone
Offering one piece of mango
to each of her customers
The ritual of choosing the mangoes
Of striking the bargain
Of counting them one, two, three...
Of the count of mangoes
that are indicative of the time that has passed
From hundred to thirty
Of the people who had been
Of the people who are
Of the people who aren't
Of the little boy cutting the mangoes
One by one
with clinical precision
at two rupees per piece
Of the size of the piece
Of picking them into that big brown bag
Of the pleasure of being given those two additional pieces
Measuring each ingredient
one at a time
of rules, that can't be broken
Rules that
remain significant only as rules
Looking up the recipe
from that old hundred pages book
with blue lines
When the black and white photograph of E.B John
his wife, his son and daughter
glances out
The story of him being engulfed
by the Bay of Bengal
Mixing all the weird things
and all the strange stories
so different from one another
forcibly put them together
Trying to be involved
and yet try
not to get stained
and still end up with them
a lot of them
Then it gets made
a concoction
called pickle