We purposefully stride into Sri City, Tada, a two-hour drive from sweltering Chennai. After all, we are women on a mango-plucking mission. The promise of the last ripe batch of the season has us raring to go. The camping site of Exoticamp welcomes us with an array of activities such as badminton, cricket and star-gazing. The sight of bicycles has us jumping with joy.
As we sip our evening tea, the badminton courts fill with childlike laughter, followed by a languid stroll that leads us to an almost dried up creek. A short distance away, it feeds into a lake that glitters in the moonlight. Just the sight of the lake is a balm to our souls and throats, parched by the Chennai summer.
Making music
We come back to the camp to settle down to dinner and a host of name games that quickly morph into an intense two-hour antakshari session à la Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Our mango adventures might be a night away, but as we settle down, we realise we are in for a trip that we won’t forget and are about to make some friends for life.
At 6 am, we are woken up by the sounds of over-energetic birds that must have sensed we are out-of-towners. A few feet away, we can see signs of the previous night’s merrymaking; a telescope that had been used to view Saturn on a clear night is still perched delicately on its stand. “We saw Saturn, with rings around it,” exclaims Balaji Mannar Kala, a travel enthusiast, as we shake ourselves awake. A strong cup of tea later, the prospect of a grove lush with mangoes gets us moving.
The place, which is a short drive away, awaits us with its strong aroma of banganapallis, jawaris and rumanis ; and the chirping of birds. The trees are heavy with ripe fruit and our guides set about identifying them for us, even as we eagerly bite into the lush fruits. Slowly, our bags become heavier as the young farm hands toss the fruit, landing it deliberately into our stash for the ride home and the week ahead.
Guiding us are Prakash and Lily, caretakers of the grove. As we enter, we are greeted by moos of the cows tethered to the walls of the farmers’ houses. It is a classic village scene, and our photographer cannot resist clicking pictures of an adorable calf batting its eyelashes at us. There is so much serenity here that makes us want to stay on.
Exoticamp’s aim is to build a rapport with the local community of a place and then camp there, rather than seeing it just as any other business, says Prem Vijaykumar, co-founder of Exoticamp. He first came to this grove in 2013. “I took some mangoes home from here and my family loved them. They joined me the next time I went. The pleasure of plucking mangoes right from the trees is something we are missing out on. So, we sensed an opportunity for a camp here.”
By the end of our brief tour, we are armed with a five-kilo stash of mangoes, and we trudge back to the camp. We say our goodbyes with the promise of another adventure soon to comfort us.
Work comes rushing back in a flood of emails and messages as we get back into our cars. In the corner of the backseat, a mango rolls around with a whisper of a reminder: the season’s not over yet.
