Grandma's Indian Pickle

“Granny! The Sun's up!” said Tanuja. Monty, her younger brother, came rushing up the stairs and into the terrace. Grandma, being old, couldn't follow up to their enthusiastic cries. She clambered up the stairs and went into the terrace while her two mischievous grandchildren kept running around in circles and uttering ebullient words. “My dear, stop running and tell me what has happened”, said Grandma in her rustic yet motherly voice. As the children approached her, she put her hand over her forehead as the blazing sun made her scalp hot. “Granny, don't you see? The sun!”, said Monty jumping on his heels. Tanuja added, “Yeah! And like you said we need the sun in order to pickle those raw mangoes because they need to be dried first which can be done now!”, she took her grandmother's hands which were wrinkled yet familiar with lines scattered across them. Thus, for the first time, Grandma realised that the sun was high up in the sky. Giving them a smile, she went inside the room, adjacent to the terrace door. As the children looked around, their eyes gleamed in jubilance.

 So, they dried the mangoes, smeared them in a variety of spices and water and kept them to get pickled for a few weeks.

One day, about three weeks after the mangoes had been set to pickle. Monty, suddenly found himself holding a bowl of curd after having lunch. “Granny? I thought you said that we were going to have those pickled mangoes but this looks like Mahadev's shop's curd-like last summer.”, he said. “My dearies, I forgot to tell you earlier that I had prepared this curd at home by the process of bacterial fermentation using some leftover curd from Mahadev's shop....”, said Grandma. The children listened to her in awe as she described the process while finishing their bowls of curd 

Then, a day after they had tried the pickle for the first time, Monty started screaming and crying in his sleep. Grandma woke him up, scared that something was wrong with him. He woke up, looked around, gave a sigh of relief and went back to sleep instantly. Waiting for a few minutes, Grandma went to sleep too. The next afternoon came and the three of them were having the delectable pickled mangoes after lunch. Grandma suddenly recalled last night's encounter with Monty - she asked him “My dear, what happened last night? Why were you so scared?”. Monty's colour flushed immediately and he kept looking down at his bowl while fidgeting with his spoon. He finally looked up, after a few moments and said in a low, timid voice “I dreamt that I had dropped my last bowl of pickled mangoes and there was no more left. So, I was sad and started crying.” Tanuja and Grandma and looked at each other gravely for a moment and then, started laughing and Monty gave in too.