Summer comes with it's own charm
M.RAGHURAM
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Summer's the time to eat mangoes and have fun.
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PHOTO: C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM
SPECIAL DAYS: Fun and mangoes.
In summer the weather is hot, you can stretch up and touch the sky goes a popular number of Shaggy. What makes summer so special?
No doubt summer is hot with the sun blazing in full glory. If it is coastal sultry weather you will be dripping with sweat. It is also true that you will feel messy and drained of energy. But apart from that summer is fun specially if you learn to like the sunny days.
There are few little things that might help us understand the spirit of summer better. For school children lucky to get about 60-70 days of summer vacation with free time, no homework, no mugging or working out, all those days are fully theirs to enjoy.
There are many good things that summer heat can do to youngsters. The get accustomed to the hot climate. They get closer to nature.
They play in the sun, take refuge under a tree and perhaps learn to climb it, especially if it is a mango tree. They might even safely try to take a dip in the local tank or river, ride cycles in the countryside on safer roads, or even go trekking with friends . If there are sugarcane fields, its fun to watch the farmers at work. The farmers might even give them pieces of cane to chew or show them how they make jaggery and allow them to taste the hot jaggery.
More mangoes
Summer is also the mango season. It is estimated that India has over 700 varieties of mangoes right from the common Thotapuri to the exotic Devgarh and Rathnagiri Alphonsos that have become popular even in the U.S.
Unlike seed dispersion of other smaller fruits, mangoes depend more on human beings for seed dispersion. Earlier, children after eating the fruit used to throw the mango seed as far as possible. There used to be competitions among them to determine who threw farthest. In the monsoons they would go to the same spot to find that the seeds had germinated and there was a new mango sapling coming up.
In cities like Mangalore, the children still do it.
During the monsoon season take the new sapling to their school for the `Vanamathosava' (tree planting campaign under social forestry scheme) designed to increase the number of trees.
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