The Complaint of a Mango Tree

"How are you “Gulab Khas”?

“Very well and very happy!”

“What makes you so gay?

This year there isn’t a fruit

On your boughs and branches.

Tell me the reason, I pray?”

“That’s the reason I am happy?

I don’t have to nourish any fruit

I don’t need a guard to safekeep

I’ll seat myself on an easy chair

And take a long, long rest

Enjoy a long, long sleep!”

“O Gulab Khas, my children are sad

There isn’t one gulab khas mango

To lick, to slurp, to bite, this year!”

“Your children are sad, you say?

Serves them right! The tailless apes!

They’re worse than apes, I swear!”

"Look at the wound on my body!

Can you tell how many stones

At me they have thrown ?

How many brick bats and bamboo sticks?

How much pain have they heaped on me?

Thank God, they haven’t had me mown!”

“Jolly good  it feels to be saved

Form your marauding crowd

Your merciless army of Genghis Khan!

It’s better to be fruitless

For all years to come, do so O nature;

Than be on the path of your Familian clan!”

Xavier Bage

Thurs, April 21, 2016

Gulab Khas is the local name for a tasty and juicy variety of mango. This mango appears very enticing with its yellow and red peel. There is just one Gulab Khas tree in the Familia campus. Naturally, it attracts our children more than any other mango tree. Gulab Khas mango fruits look like those in this image.