Grandfather's Apples

Tia was sitting in the veranda reading and occasionally watching grandfather watering the plants through the corner of her eye. The sound of the front gate opening and exchange of greetings distracted Tia, she moved her head to look at the gate as well was supremely happy to see her childhood friends and neighbors the twins 'Lucky and Cutie' after a long time. The twins had shifted to Canada along with their parents, where their father worked as partners in an Indian restaurant.

They hugged Tia and moved with her to the living room, the childhood friends shared gossips and stories about their school, friends, locality, and lives. They laughed and argued when the elders reminded them of their mischiefs. Mother came in with sherbets and apple-pie which she had baked on Tia's insistence. The twins loved the pie and boasted they too had apple trees in their yard and the famous 'Northern spy' variety was their favorite. Cutie further added this particular variety had thin skin, white flesh, juicy and crispy. Grandfather on hearing this could not hold his spirits and announced he too had varieties of apple trees in his backyard. Tia was dumbstruck and almost choked on her sherbet, she knew they lived in the dry and humid climate of eastern India and if the ecstatic kids demanded to see the apple trees grandfather would be in hot waters. Tia's fear came true when Lucky announced he wanted to see the apple trees. Grandfather smiled and promised to show them only after finishing the pie, he looked Tia's worried face and winked.

The smart twins finished off the pie in a heartbeat and got off to inspect the backyard. Tia was miserable as she could not think of any plans to keep the twins off their backyard.

Grandfather put on his rubber slippers and stepped out of the house followed by the eager twins and gloomy Tia. Grandfather walked a few steps in the backyard and stopped near a tree, he introduced the tree as the sugar-apple or sitaphal tree. The twin's chin fell down in disbelief Tia was on cloud nine. Grandfather strode a little and pointed to another tree and referred it as wood-apple. He continued on his stride and stopped near a shrub the kids instantly recognized the pineapple. The amused kids followed grandfather to a corner giant tree, this time Lucky filled in 'this is ice-apple or the palm tree'. They paced further to a tree which had enormous fruits, grandfather introduced it as elephant-apple the kids loved the tangy curry and chutney prepared from it. They walked further and saw the custard-apple tree which is also called Ramphal. The enthusiastic bunch continued to walk and stopped near a tree which they instantly recognized by its leaves and the sherbet they had made with its fruit the stone-apple. They walked a bit more and grandfather showed them the cashew-apple tree. The kids were highly impressed with grandfather's expertise and also learned to appreciate the mundane things around them.