Me,
a 10 year old. It' s my summer vacation. And I am at Pimpri, near
Pune , spending my holidays with my maternal aunt, my maternal
grandmother and my cousins. The quiet of the afternoon, oh
yes..afternoons would be really quiet..was pierced by an almost wailing
melody. A man singing something. I rushed to the window. Across the
street , an old man with a white topi, a shirt and a dhotar, came
along, pushing a cart . Once again, he sang in a loud and clear voice,
"kaali kaaaali mynaaaa, naaandaayla zaaainaa! ".
My grandmother pressed a 10 paise coin in my palm and handed me a small bowl. She asked me to go and buy the karvanda.
Yes ..karvanda. Kaali myna, dongarchi myna, dongrachi myna, were the
other names for the karvanda. As I stepped out of the house, my
friends- the children of my aunt's friends and neighbours -were crowding
around the old man.
Having bought the fruit, we rushed home, washed the karvanda, and sit in a close huddle, outside the house, chomping on them.
Each
one of us would pick up one karvanda, in turns and ask the other
friends." Kombdi ka kombda?". They would make a guess. Kombdi..some
would yell. Kombda, the others. Then the karvanda would be subjected
to a small nibble, while the others waited anxiously. If , on biting,
the fruit revealed a red pulpy interior, it was the kombdi. And if it
was white, it was the kombda.
After a few such noisy rounds, we
would silently eat them, spitting out the seeds, with a careful aim,
such that they wouldn't land on any of us.
A few weeks ago, my
friend visited us bearing a packet of Karvanda . After he left, i
greedily sat down to eat a bowlful. It was more than a decade or two
since i had eaten them last. As i bit the first one, i screamed
aloud....kombdiii !
I was alone, at home.., no one to share the
excitement with. The situation was rectified. I called the daughter on
a WhatsApp video call, and played the game. Kombdi ka kombda? I asked
her. Poor girl...though she might have eaten karvanda, she did not know
about this. But she played along. And i had a good time..i hope she
did too. Sadly, for her , she could only play the guessing game while i
ate.
