A Pickled Life!

What's a meal without a pickle. A welcome sign in any kitchen is those rows of bottles filled with reddish brown substance. [colours vary from red to brown depending on the constituents] Come summer, it is the pickle season out here. Yesterday my aunt made fresh cauliflower pickle. Needless to say, anything that comes out of my aunt's hand is yummy. Remembrance of things past. My mind travelled to those days when another aunt of mine used to make mango pickle. It was more of a ritual, something that she did with reverence every summer. Let me tell how she did it.   First of all, the pickle making day was announced in advance. The children were warned to wake up early in the morning and finish the morning rituals, have their fill of food and disappear. Disappear here means going off to the groves, playing with the other village kids or watching movies on the rented VCR. The kitchen was a separate block by itself. In the garden, aunt would have already pounded the red chillies [they only look red, they are not so spicy!] and the other required ingredients. She would pound them into a fine powder. Then come out the cut mango pieces. Triangular pieces of raw mangoes. She would mix the pieces with the powder and oil by hand and store them in earthern jars....huge ones. Only after the kitchen was completely cleaned would the children be allowed. The result - red mango pickle. Mix it with steaming hot rice and add a dash of ghee - you are on your way towards a lip-smacking treat. Of course, the treat used to be punctuated by stentorian warnings that we should not eat too much, otherwise our stomachs would start behaving unpredictably. But...who cared. Today, very few people have the space and time to make pickles in such large quantities. My aunt in Hyderabad makes pickle using a mixer. It's good. But nowhere does it approximate to the taste of those pickles in earthen jars. But at least my aunt is making. As I walk down the supermarket aisle, I see the numerous bottles of pickles of all kinds and constituents. They remind me of those earthen jars, red mango pickle made by my aunt in my village. I sigh, and move on.