To our surprise, our quest for that elusive Jungle Jalebi—which Raju and I had been pursuing a little too obsessively—ended in our friend's backyard garden on a hot summer day when the sun meant serious business.
When we first heard about the existence of a fruit called Jungle Jalebi (Pithecellobium dulce, also known as monkey pods or Madras thorn), it immediately piqued our interest. The name of the fruit sounded so intriguing and original that we decided to venture to the outermost reaches of Trishul Park suburbia to find it. However, it was not easy to find one. Nowhere in Trishul Park or the Sub Area beyond where we suspected there could be something could we locate the tree. That was until one day, a friend who occasionally played cricket with us showed it to us in his garden near the jhula. We found that the tree was medium-sized and bore what we already pictured, spirally or jalebi-like fruit, hidden behind the wildly growing backyard of his dormitory. Raju and I exhaled with relief when we spotted a wild-growing Jungle Jalebi tree. (Whoa! After searching far and wide and failing to find it, we may finally officially proclaim that we have located it, eaten it, and tasted it.)
Eventually, Raju and I plucked one each, unsure if we could pop it in our mouths just like that, but prodded on by our friend saying, "Go ahead. Give it a shot. Eat," we ate the edible part as shown by him and his spry little sis Neelam (who earlier had enlivened the open garden space with her arty markings made using a slender tree twig on the sand and smiled heavenly), of what looked like the pink, and greenish-white sweet and sour seed pods plucked one by one from the spiral jalebis, and seemed to have liked the savour. It tasted mildly sweet and tangy, bearably musky and acrid—all rolled into one mouthful of an exotic fruit that had previously kept us spending much of our waking hours thinking about how to fetch them and eat if we could until the day we got the chance to try it in somebody's backyard garden right in our beloved Trishul Park premises.
Gratified or something close to it, not sure, we found ourselves merely nodding sagely in unison as we munched on the raw seed pods in a spiral string, a queer fruit that we don't take every day, not even occasionally, not even rarely, if so ever because nobody sells them, not available in the market or anywhere. (Jungle Jalebi grows secretly in somebody's backyard garden, possibly only in the cantonment area.) Shooting funny looks at each other, which we both can't interpret but wondering, "Is this good?" or probably wondering if we have to hurry back home and void our bowels! Thankfully, it didn't come to that. We thanked him for showing us the elusive hard-to-find fruit pods and letting us lug a handful of them (filled into our pant pockets) from his wildly growing garden yard. As we left, Neelam waved us off with a cheerful "See you, bye!"
**
As Raju and I were walking home, the gorgeous melody of "Jab hum jawaan honge, jaane kahaan honge, lekin jahaan honge wahan fariyaad karenge, tujhe yaad karenge" could be heard from across the main road. It was from the only audio stall in our lonely Alwal town. We would periodically stop by it to listen to music and get a peek at the latest Hindi movie soundtrack cassettes. Whether we were playing outdoors or flying kites, the ballads from the stall were never far from our minds, inspiring some of the fondest memories of listening to film songs during our childhood. As soon as we recognized the tune from the movie we'd once seen at the open-air theatre, we couldn't help but sing along. (Realizing we had a new song in our kitty to use anytime the Antakshari game came up with the girls, we sang harder, as we walked along, than necessary to ensure we got the tunes right.) Those were the good old days!**
That was the last time we saw Neelam and her brother, our mutual acquaintance—who had happily encouraged us to eat the crazy Jungle Jalebi pods growing in their back garden—in 1983 or 1984.Had Raju spoken about the tiny little butterflies fluttering in his stomach, he would have said something like this:
We were all children growing up... Neelam was six or seven years old, but she had a breathtakingly beautiful face that seemed almost forbidden at such a young age, a subtle hint of graceful femininity. Her doll-like face, sharp eyes with arched black eyebrows, and milky fair complexion seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, leaving an indelible impression on you. That day, she (and her brother) were standing in their back garden, smiling sweetly in the early morning light, and Bappin and I couldn't help but think of her as an English rose (or a magnificent ‘desi gulab’) we'd never seen before. If this isn't love, then what is? And yet, if someone were to write a story about her, it would have a happy ending.
Neelam's handsome older brother, whom everyone called "Chauhan," was an excellent cricket all-rounder, and cricket was a compelling game that all the youngsters of Trishul Park found time to indulge in. Everyone engaged in cricket like there was no tomorrow. Pace bowling was Chauhan's chosen specialty, and he bowled similarly to one of our favourite sporting icons, Kapil Dev. In our little ways, we tried emulating the fearsome fast bowling attack of the legendary 1980s West Indies team that we watched on television—Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Andy Roberts, and so on. Raju and I played on Chauhan's and other teams during the school breaks in October and December. We would conduct matches on a bet between 50 and 150 rupees, which was, in those days, a significant sum of prizemoney to win.
Raju and I never sought Jungle Jalebi again after that first (and the last time). We forgot about it. It was good while it lasted, but we got a move on. As time rolled from month to month and year to year, we became more interested in flying kites or rolling cycle tyres with a stick or playing cricket or I-Spy ("eyes-spies"/Hide and seek) with children of all sizes from nearby dormitories; even girls would join us to play I-Spy, as we would join them to play Langdi tang (tag and hopscotch) hopping on only one leg, or Tikkar billa or Ludo. Homework could wait! At times, we played cricket with a real bat* and something that looked like a bat at other times. We watched movies at the open-air cinema Manoranjan every Saturday or pursued the pleasures of viewing Doordarshan programs on our neighbours’ TVs or going to the TV room at the jhula to watch them.
*(I once received a cricket bat as a gift. Unfortunately, during one of the matches, some idiot stole it from the ground and took it home, and despite my repeated requests, the people who took it never bothered to return it. I lost that bat forever.)
Rajesh, Rinku, Swamidas, Kancha, Tinda, Raju, me, and other school-going students would congregate in one of Trishul Park's numerous open spaces and engage in intense cricket sessions until 4 or 5 pm. Our squad would purchase red Cork balls lined with double or triple seams to play all those delightful cricket matches with the sensational seniors. Rajesh and Kancha were the only people who did not reside in Trishul Park and would travel a considerable distance to join us for the cricket friendlies.
**
Jungle Jalebi became a wonderful folklore in the friendship circle of our childhood days in the early 1980s, and its memory lingers even today. (To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
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