While on walk this morning with my four-legged friend of 15 years Daffy, I saw from distance a child trying to bring down with a bamboo pole something from a tree. Curious I reached the child and was surprised to see him collecting jungle jalebis (Pithecellobium dulce), commonly called Manila Tamarind, Madras Thorn and Monkey Pod. I helped him and brought a few jungle jalebis for me also!

The incident took me back to my childhood days, which were spent in Rudauli, a small town some 90 km from Lucknow. Around this time of the year my school was ‘almost’ closed and would finally close on 20 May for summer holidays after declaration of the results. On the bank of the canal passing near the school playground were three-four jungle jalebi trees and we would savour on them each day.

Soon cousins Gudde (Avinash), Bobby (Bhupesh), Pappu (Sunil), Pintoo (Sanjay) from Lucknow would reach Rudauli to spend summer holidays. Upon their arrival we would be a strong team of six-seven children, whose only job would be to do all kinds of pranks possible under the sun. The school was rich in plants. Mangoes, phalsa, mulberry, cranberry, jamun, apart from jungle jalebis, were available in plenty. We children would just eat them as much and as many as we could. We would climb many trees. Injuries would not deter us. That was another thing that we used to get a good dressing down when we got hurt.

Locally, many fruits were available almost round the year. My home itself had mango, papaya and custard apple plants. Tamarind, guava, kaitha and star fruit were available in plenty in neighbourhood. Sackful of wood apple would be supplied by father of my dear friend Ram Prakash to my father.

Summers used to be so much of fun. Holiday meant holiday. No summer camp. No school orchestrated activity. No homework – what was that by the way. No third party promoted activities. Society was not materialistic then. No meddling by elders. We learnt good and bad things of life ourselves, from each other. Of course, elders had their own system of espionage on us, but that was not as invasive as today’s electronic surveillance is.

All good things have to end one day. After doing 10th, I was packed off to Lucknow for further studies. From a big home and lots of green open surroundings, I came to small home in Maqboolganj, a mohalla near Charbagh railway station. Among the first things that I learnt in Lucknow was that jamuns were also sold, something shocking for me. Soon I realised that all those good priceless things were indeed pricy. That realisation was a new beginning.