Of Mangoes and Mango Chutney

Stories are like mangoes. You pick and pluck at will. Then, you eat them the way they taste the best to you.

Some use a spoon and as objective eaters experience the taste without getting their hands and heads too involved. I want to have some light fun. Plus, it’s just another mango!

Others trust and thrust their teeth deep into it; pull, gnaw, chew and with the first bites still in their mouths say ‘That was so sweet. Brilliant!’ or pucker up their faces instantly and spit out a ‘Hey! Sour and unripe.’ Quickies, so to say.

   

Often you find people chopping them into tiny pieces, then poking tooth picks into each geometric piece, tasting them that much longer, trying to understand the mango to pronounce verdict. I’d like to believe they know what they are doing!

  

One category does buy the mango just to prove the tree wrong. To prove that the guthlee is bigger than the juicy yellow part and the fruit a failure. They would pay just to prove that. Rich, but so poor. I wish them peace.

So strange how much I can metaphor-ise on mangoes and stories, isn’t it? I must be missing them a lot as autumn dawns. Or maybe, I was simply waiting for the noise around ‘Mango Chutney’ to die down. After months of being the cynosure, the first short story anthology I am a part of is resting – away from Facebook clamour and Amazon glamour. However, sitting snug and smug on a pedestal of pride, in my heart and mind. My first you see, as dear as dear can be, for reasons aplenty.

27 short stories by mostly first time writers were selected to be published by a new-kid-on-the-block, Rumour Books, with Harsh Snehanshu as its Editor. I don’t think this young man slept much those days. Inboxes rang with new messages in the middle of workdays and ‘Please see and revert ASAP’ mails dropped by at 3 am. Okay, I exaggerate a wee bit but only to tell you how passionately he led this project. How democratically too.

At every step the writers were kept in the loop and their opinions sought. It was ‘our’ book in its truest sense. The cover was selected by consensus. Each story went through phased edits and was mailed back to us for approvals. Sadly, this very democracy swung the pendulum both ways. 27 people took their time and turns to approve edits, Microsoft Word’s Track-Change played tricks, the print deadline approached and ‘Send’ was pressed with a heart-beat skipped, and a few commas and full-stops too. Unforgivable, true. Looking forward to a cleaner Edition II.

The book was is successful. Professional numbers I don’t know but personal sentiments I heard, about the book as well as my story – from well-known authors, the book’s co-authors, family overseas, long lost friends and so many strangers on social media. It affirmed to me that the naysayers’ belief that no love and support is unconditional, is rubbish after all.

‘Mango Chutney’ had variety to offer its readers, in terms of genre and style, context and geography. In terms of quality too. Some stories soared confidently while others sat with their legs crossed, somewhere in the background. Some stole the readers’ hearts instantly and others disappointed them with their mere presence. 27 different authors, their ideas and moods, their use of language cannot please homogeneously. I bare my heart to tell you this that it did not me! What I learnt? The ‘quality’ of a story lies in the eyes of the reader to a very large extent, especially because each printed piece is received uniquely by every pair of reading eyes. What better proof of that than learning that the stories which some called the weakest links were hailed as favourites by others? 

How interesting the act of creating becomes then, ridden with not just flair but fluidity too. And helpless fear.

I remember how pills of Lomotil vanished into my stomach on the days preceding the launch at Oxford Bookstore, in New Delhi. I wonder why? Maybe because it was my first time. Or that some were betting their knickers off that money’s worth will not be found in the book? (I am hoping in their eyes too they stood naked after they read the book). The Lomotil-fed butterflies from my stomach reached my knees and I decided to wear a sari to keep the knocking from showing. I lie! I decided to dress as special as the day was to me, and not according to venue, age, company or the fact that I was just 1/27th a part of it. After all, on number 25 was my story ‘On the Other Side’ – one I stood by before I pressed ‘send’ and the one I know I could not have written any better, certainly not then. The gush of appreciation has ebbed, but the already burgeoning inbox will stand evidence to that.

Since stories are like mangoes, pride must be the last drop of sweet mango juice still stuck on the lips and which is so lovely to realize and lick a few moments later. Like right now…

Metaphors, metaphors, how I love you but spare me now, will you? A mango. A mango carved from the rarest stone I need placed on my writing desk. Or maybe, a book with a picture of a mango on it.  

(That’s a lot of mango now. Time for another Chutney! Wait, hasn't the rumour mill told you yet?)

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was -Michelangelo’s YOU - Your personal sculptor is carving a person, thing, or event from the last month of your life into the glistening marble of immortality. What’s the statue and what makes it so significant?]