With its drooping clusters of bright yellow flowers, Amaltas is synonymous with Delhi’s summers. Come May, the city adorns a beautiful canary-yellow hue and looks resplendent in all her glory.
Amaltas, the Indian laburnum, is a spot of sunshine in an already sunny city, but we aren’t complaining. So common is the sight during the months of May and June that environmentalist Pradip Krishen wrote in his book Trees of Delhi, “Amaltas is in danger of becoming (like the peacock) so common that we stop noticing it. Amrita Shergil Marg, Shanti Path and Akbar Road are lined with it. Shakti Sthal has many trees. Common as crows in every park and large garden, it is thinly scattered throughout the Ridge and in Jawaharlal Nehru University’s untended areas.”
But will the romance that Delhi shares with its favourite tree fade away? I guess not, for there are some things that are everlasting, like the romance one shares with a lover that pays a visit once in a blue moon, making the longing and the final meeting more special than what can be put in words.
Not surprisingly, this is also the relationship that we share with mangoes. While the mango season began in the Western Ghats in the March and Alphonsos made their way to Delhi too, but the purists wait for the Dasheri mangoes from Uttar Pradesh to flood the markets before proclaiming the mango season to be open. The love that Delhi shares for mangoes can be traced back to the Mughal era when Akbar Shah II had ‘amraiyan’ or mango orchards planted in Mehrauli.
In fact, a sneak-peek into the farmhouses of the area may reveal some of the oldest mango trees of Delhi. One of Delhi’s best kept secrets is the Shalimar Bagh, a densely packed residential colony in North-West Delhi steeped in forgotten history. Sometime in the 17th century, emperor Shah Jahan ordered for extensive mango orchards to be planted there and surprisingly parts of the orchard still survive inside the concrete jungle that the place is today.
In City Of My Heart, Delhi resident, novelist and historian Rana Safvi brings alive four Urdu narratives of the period after 1857, the final days of Mughal rule in Delhi. In the story, ‘Dilli ka Aakhiri Deedar’ (The Last Glimpse of Delhi) by Syed Wazir Hasan Dehlvi, she brings to life the glorious monsoon of Delhi as enjoyed by the princesses and their friends, enjoying themselves in the baghs of ‘amraiyan’ — the mango orchard near Zafar Mahal in Mehrauli in the monsoons. The family of emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar accompanied him every year here for the Phoolwalo’n ki Sair held in the month of saawan.
In fact, those who have known Delhi for years retain romances of a bygone era with mangoes. A few months ago, Rama Kapur, an octogenarian Delhi resident, told me how she, along with her cousins and neighbouring friends, would not even wait for mangoes to ripen — and go for the kaccha aam as soon as they would start falling from the trees. Kapur’s family home is in the central Barakhamba Road.
“The little tapka that would fall from the tree after the rains were our favourite,” she said.
Such memories are hardly isolated — today, we all retain special memories with mangoes. For some, mangoes hark back to a time in their childhood when their grandmothers would make achaar, and store them in large glass containers for entire families to savour for months — sometimes, even years.
But, most such memories are associated with a time when families would be joint homes, filled with multiple units of a family that would savour a season together. Ask anyone that have lived in such family homes, and they would tell you today that the real joy of any season was to be able to share the choicest spoils of every season with your closest ones. Interestingly enough, you continue to see remnants of this all across Delhi even today. Be it in Purani Dilli, or in the newer suburbs of the still-old West Delhi neighbourhoods, families continue to know each other, and play crucial roles in each other’s lives — almost like a close-knit ecosystem. A second thought into such ecosystems will tell you that be it mangoes or amaltas, there’s never an emotion that does not hark back to Delhi, from a time when every season was an ecosystem in itself.
Vernika Awal is a food writer who is known for her research-based articles through her blog ‘Delectable Reveries’
