Home is Where the Mangoes Are - Short Story

For nine long years, Arjun had been living in Seattle. He had the job, the apartment overlooking the skyline, the weekend getaways to Paris, and even the coffee that remembered his name. But every year, without fail, there was one thing he missed with a tug so strong it made his heart ache: the mangoes of home.

Not just any mangoes. Ratnagiri Alphonsos.

Every summer, his phone would light up with pictures, video calls, and reels. There were his neighbors slicing juicy mangoes, his cousins licking the last bits off their fingers, and mango milkshakes blending in the kitchens. He would scroll past, swallow hard, and tell himself, 'Next year, maybe.' 

But next year never came. Work, life, visas, something always stood in the way.

In Seattle, life moved fast. He had grown used to the subway announcements, 24-hour grocery stores, cold weather, and the occasional Indian grocery store mango that never quite tasted right. They were overripe, overpriced, and always disappointing. He would hold one up, close his eyes, and imagine the first bite of a real Ratnagiri mango, but it was never the same.

Until one random Tuesday afternoon, while aimlessly scrolling through Instagram reels during a coffee break, it happened. A reel popped up. A vendor in Ratnagiri, slicing open a mango so perfect it glowed. The camera zoomed in. The pulp shimmered. A little kid in the background squealed, “Aai! Ek aur mango!”

Arjun froze. He watched the reel again. And again. And again.

The next morning, his boss got a polite email. “Taking two weeks off. Family emergency.”

That same night, Arjun was on a flight home.

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The moment he stepped out of the airport, warm air hugged him like an old friend. Auto rickshaws honked, people yelled across terminals, the smell of dust and diesel hit his senses, and oddly, comforted him. He smiled for the first time in weeks.

When he stepped into his parents’ home in Pune, jet-lagged and mango-obsessed, his mother shrieked and his father dropped his newspaper. No one had told them. Arjun just hugged them tightly and said, “I am hungry.”

They thought he meant dinner. His mom rushed to the kitchen to prepare something special for him. 

But Arjun didn’t even unpack. Still in jeans and his sweatshirt, he ran straight to the old fruit market at the corner of MG Road. The same market he’d walked through as a boy, dragging his mom’s dupatta and begging for an extra mango.

There were rows of fruit vendors shouting prices, kids running between stalls, the buzz of fans overhead. Piles of mangoes sat in straw-lined crates like treasure. The aroma hit him first. A perfume that only Ratnagiri mangoes wore. Sun-kissed, golden, slightly warm.  

One vendor recognized him instantly. “Arjun baba? Kitne saal ho gaye!” he laughed. Arjun smiled, blinking away a tear. He pointed to the best-looking box. “Wahi purani wali quality chahiye, Kaka.”

He bought an entire box, twelve mangoes that looked like they were sculpted by angels.

Back home, he didn’t wait for dessert. He cut one open and dug in. Sweetness exploded in his mouth. Not the synthetic sweetness of bottled juices or imported variants. 

A memory came rushing in. He was seven, sitting on the kitchen floor with his cousins, all of them shirtless to avoid getting mango pulp on their clothes. His grandfather would hand each of them one mango and say, "Hatane kha re!" (“Eat with your hands!”) Sticky fingers, mango mustaches, everyone sitting, talking, and laughing. 

It wasn’t just the fruit. It was the feeling. It was home. This was mango with memory. Mango that tasted of summer vacations, afternoon naps, and the love of grandparents.

For the next two weeks, Arjun did nothing fancy. No Europe-style brunches with friends, no five-star menus with family. Just mangoes. Morning, noon, and night. Mango slices, mango milkshakes, aamras with puri, even frozen cubes as midnight snacks.

He sat on the terrace with his dad, talking about nothing and everything. He watched his mom scoop mango pulp the same way she did when he was ten. For once, life slowed down. And it felt full.

One night, as he licked the pulp off his fingers, he whispered to himself, “This… this is luxury.”

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No matter how far we go in search of success, the taste of home, sometimes quite literally, is what nourishes us in ways that Michelin stars never can.

You see, the world offers many things: smooth highways, stable incomes, and sky-high views. But the true luxuries? They're often found in the scent of ripe mangoes in a noisy Indian market, in a mother’s worried scolding, in shared silence on a sunlit terrace.

Sometimes, it’s not just a country we miss, it’s a season. A fruit. A feeling.

Like Ratnagiri mangoes in June.

Like home.

Have you ever longed for something so simple, yet so deeply rooted in home? Share your sweetest memory of home in the comments below.

This post is a part of the Blogchatter Food Fest.