Summer Gifts:“लैला की उँगलियाँ, मजनू की पसलियां: गर्मियों के बेनजीर तोहफे !

By Rajbir Deswal

AS a child I often travelled to visit my elder sister married in Shamli (Uttar Pradesh). Though Punjabi food is a global phenomenon these days, the style and statement with which the UP-walas showcase their delicacies is no less interesting and mouth-watering, be it Mathura Ke Pede or Agre Ka Petha.

But having crossed the Yamuna Bridge, what I usually saw lined up in summers in the sleepy town of Kairana were hundreds of vending stalls—mobile and static. They were all selling nicely cut and washed “Laila ki ungliyan aur Majnu ki pasliyan!”— which were nothing but Kakri or cucumber. Salted masala added taste to the cool and refreshing product on sale, besides the Laila-Majnu sobriquets.

In Shamli, they had watermelons cut into appropriate and attractive sizes, with that blood-red foamy pulp. And you had no choice but to order a big plate full beyond the brim.

I equally relished the sight of easy-going Mullas donning skull-caps eating watermelons while sitting on Yamuna Bridge sideberms, breaking the big ball into two halves and partaking of the sweet, pithy, viscous stuff, with beards dipping in the green bowl. Compared to this, I pity the white woman, who ate the watermelon with fork in a South England county, when I saw her treating herself with a not-so-ripe pinkish likeness of pulp.

In Punjab-Haryana too we witness such sights and summer months have Pudina-pani sellers. They hang green pudina leaves around a huge pitcher. Then they also put a lemon-rosary around the pitcher, for enhanced effect. Lo and behold! The elixir sells like it should!

The most awaited vendor some years ago used to be the Malai-Baraf-wala who had a pitcher of icecream, wrapped in a woollen muffler. He carried a small scale with him and enough hard but green leaves of probably Dhaak trees, on which he served his product. People invariably had a sample of this malai-baraf on the back of their palm.

Once while returning from Hyderabad, our train passed through Gujarat and Rajasthan, and the cut-tomatoes straight from the dried-up seasonal streams, sprinkled with water and served in huge plates had their own unique and organic taste.

Besides, nariyal pani, thandaee made of crushed almonds and black pepper in sweetened milk, lassi; chuskee (ice-crush candy with attractive colours of viscous sweet liquid appropriately sprinkled all over), kanji-pani, aam-panna, gond-kateera and falooda; Bhyu-Patra juice also added up to the summers’ menu card. In summers, Indians just love products having ‘thandee-taseer’—cool characteristic (apologies for bad translation).

No, I am not forgetting something special which not only acts as nourishment to the taste buds but also as laxative to constipated mortals. I cannot think of an Indian summer when I was not loyal to the king of fruits — mango.