The stone looked just like any other to the poor tribal woman, whose sickle rubbed against its surface as she cut the grass under it. But the rock was waiting to be discovered and the divine spirit residing within, awaiting liberation at the hands of a mortal woman. It bled. The frightened woman ran to seek the help of an ascetic living in the forest.The sage, on arrival, discerned the sublime nature of the occurrences. He washed the stone with water and consecrated it as would be done with a deity. Now, when a deity is consecrated, the divine presence that is summoned to the earth has to be offered food.What was there to be offered in the hut of the poor woman, save the ashes left by the long-dead cooking fire? The ever-ingenious female, she plucked two tender mangoes hanging from the branches of the mango tree that stood nearby.Crushing it down into a crude pickle of sorts, and serving it in a coconut shell for vessel, she gave it to the sage, who offered the first earthly ambrosia to the mighty Sree Padmanabha Swamy the stone was to unravel.Stories abound on the identity of the sage. Divakara Muni, as the mythology identifies him, could very well be the scholarly Villwamangalam in his ‘poorvashram’, if the chronicles of historian Sooranad Kunjan Pillai are to be believed.Before the fleeting tanginess of the trivia on tender mangoes get drowned in the lores, shall we disclose to you that we are serving a main course of mango lores and not mythical lores?The readers might as well have guessed the context – the city’s phenomenal rush to the National Mango Festival, flooding the venue of Kanakakkunnu Palace grounds to see, taste and buy the fruit and then, simply, to bask in the heavenly aroma.Devotees of Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple still follow the representative ritual of offering ‘kanni manga’ to the Lord, in semi-cylindrical vessels made of gold, symbolic of the tribal woman’s coconut shell. The myth and the ritual are proof of the city’s vital ties with the golden fruit. In the days of dense greenery, Thiruvananthapuram is said to have been dotted with huge mango trees in plenty, offering the citizens sumptuous fruity feats and large sprawling shades that roofed many a platonic romance and intellectual parley.The crippled, parasite-ridden mango tree that stands in the campus of University College, Palayam, is a forlorn memory of the golden days. Minstrels of nature wrote and sang to the world, their hearts, beneath this grandpa tree - the quintessential romantic poet Changampuzha to the revolutionary dreamer ONV Kurup.Among the many places in the city that had names resonating a landmark mango tree that once stood on the premise, one worth mentioning is ‘Mavinmoodu’, now located at the heart of the city and known by the name of Statue Junction.Says historian Malayinkeezhu Gopalakrishnan, “The place had a huge mango tree standing right where the statue of Madhava Rao now stands. After the statue was erected, people started referring to the place by that landmark and the name ‘Mavinmoodu’ slowly receded from the city’s memory.”Madhava Rao, the Diwan of Travancore kingdom from 1857 to 1872, occupies a place of pride in the annals of history for his efficient and farsighted administrative policies. Probably during a particularly imaginative spell, the Diwan, who had inherited a bankrupt treasury which he transformed into one with a cash surplus by the end of his tenure, inaugurated a fruit and vegetable exhibition in the city.The ruling King, Ayilyam Thirunal, had a more liberal attitude than his predecessors and sanctioned the event, much to the delight of his younger brother, Visakham Thirunal Rama Varma, an agriculturist by passion. The first fruit and vegetable show was thus held in the gardens of Napier Museum. Just about 140 years later, the Mango Festival has come to town, camping quite close in that neighbourhood.Mangoes must have certainly put up a stellar performance at the maiden fruit fest in the city. The Museum gardens must have heard many an English chuckle of surprise at the unrivalled sweetness of the fruit.As an aside, Visakham Thirunal won the title in the inaugural edition for showcasing a healthy offspring of the foreigner plant of Tapioca that he had brought down from Brazil.
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