Rose - apples
Thirty five years ago when David our oldest boy was doing his French tuition with a Miss Davenport, she announced to the boys that she had a piece of farmland for sale. Promptly David told her to call me as he knew I was saving up to buy agricultural land.
"Mrs de Nazareth!" said the voice down the phone which I immediately recognised. Oh no I thought, what had David done now to incur her wrath?
"Now now! Davids been a good boy Marianne! I am calling to tell you about 2 acres that we have in Hoskote and David so sweetly said, "My mum is looking for a farm."
"Oh Yes! Miss Davenport if its in my price range, I'll buy it," I said, my voice sounding hopeful.
The price was definitely in my budget and so impulsive me said - "I'll buy it,"without even seeing it.
And then, the rest is 35 year old history.
The first trees to go down were from the Hayes Road garden. Dad was a great one sprouting seeds in any old bucket and one of them was the seed of the Rose-apple which grew in the next door house. At the time it was loaned to the army and I had a friend -- Monica Mehra living there. I jumped the wall into her house and we sat on her Rose-apple tree and ate our fill of ripe rose-apples.
Steve picking rose-apples off the tree.
Dad planted one of the seeds in an old tin bucket which germinated and grew. That was one of the first trees we put down on the land. We did get to eat a few fruit the first year it fruited and the care-taker was not familiar with the fruit. Seeds from those fruit I germinated and made four more trees. However we never got to eat a single rose-apple after that for 20 years. The caretaker we had realised he could sell our fruit to all the surrounding homes and apartments and so we were told the birds had eaten them up..
Bonny picks them too
Then we had to eject him from the land as he decided to build himself a big house around the room we gave him. Happened in Goa to my ancestors, I was not having it happen here. To our luck he said he would leave in a week if we did not double his wages. That was our chance to evict him. Anyway we had educated his boys so they were earning well and there was no need of our largesse.
It's a year since he left and we cannot fathmon the quantum of fruit the land is giving us. Bags and bags of chickoos, star fruit, gooseberries, amlas, ramphal, custard apples, and now is the mango season! The 30 trees are loaded with Raspuris and mallikas!
Kgs of Rose-apples!
Instead of selling them I am giving 1/2 kg away to each old Bangalorean who knows what a rose-apple is and who has never tasted one for decades. There's joy all around and its a good feeling to be able to let the fruit bring back old memories of our days as kids where we shared fruit off our trees and never had to buy a single one as there was so much!
