The six stages of summer love

We have just moved from balmy summered Shillong to Rajasthan, where it’s tar-meltingly hot. Every few days, Daddy gets this sack of tiny mangoes, sweet and perfect; and they are all dunked into a large tub full of water. Every 10 minutes, I dunk my hands into its icy coolness for a mango, pulling all the flesh off the skin with my teeth and spitting out the stone. I am in love. I dream about these mangoes. Four weeks later, I am covered in hideous boils from head to toe. The doctor diagnoses too much sugar from too many mangoes; I am forbidden from eating any more. I resolve to find a way to reunite with the One True Love of my life.

Ten

I am drowning in my new summer obsession, dreaming of it when asleep and thinking about it when awake. Having started late, I’m horrible at swimming, thrashing about the pool — but like lovers everywhere, I refuse to be shamed or embarrassed. I talk about my One True Love all the time (“No library for me because I’m tired from swimming” “Do you think the new boy in class will be a good swimmer?”) till everywhere I go, people start giving my love the respect it deserves by moving swiftly away when I show up. Sometimes, to recognise it; they chant swimming, swimming, swimming, as I speak. The world loves a lover.

Twelve

I have graduated from loving Imran Khan who was going to be the father of my children and whose posters plastered every inch of my room including the ceiling; to falling violently in love with Ravi Shastri, who is now going to be the father of my children and whose posters have replaced Imran Khan’s. I write to him introducing myself as his One True Fan because he might not be open-minded enough to accept my knowledge of our entwined futures. He is having a slack period and writes back enclosing photographs. I sleep with those photos under my pillow. There’s a vet’s assistant who helps with vaccinating the dogs, who smells ripe and stutters slightly, my sisters always point out the startling resemblance between him and my One True Love. The summer passes and suddenly I can see what they mean. The posters are hastily torn down. But the letter and the photographs live to tell the tale. A few years later, my cousin falls in love with Ravi Shastri. I sell her the photographs and the letter, everyone is happy.

Thirteen

There is a Palestinian graduate student who drives a red motorcycle who looks exactly like Sean Connery. He is the toast of our tiny cantonment town; all the girls have a James Bond crush — it’s a collective hallucination we all participate in. I let everyone chunter on, because I know he is my One True Love. We have exchanged meaningful glances as he has ridden past. I can tell from the meaningfulness of those glances that we will be together. In that blissful hazy future, I envisage I will know his real name and I will shout it out as I sit pillion on his red mobike, hanging on for dear life.

Sixteen

There’s a friend whose much older brother I have been in love with forever. Since the path of true love is never smooth, he doesn’t know I exist. One summer, their father unexpectedly passes away and he spends a lot of time at our home, Daddy is helping him settle his father’s affairs. Mummy shows how sorry she is for his loss by plying him with cakes, biryani, chops etc. Comatose from so much good food, he notices me at last. We spend hours chatting and the truest and onest of all my One True Loves takes birth. I confess my feelings to everyone, except him, he can surely tell from the combination of my extreme indifference to his presence and stolen looks of cow-eyed longing every now and again. His father’s affairs are settled, he gives me a giant teddy bear and mix tapes of music he recommends I listen to and disappears from my life.

Nineteen

The boy/ man I am mesmerised by is so cool that he doesn’t even care how good looking he is; which makes him even more irresistible. He plays excellent sport which is a separate love category in my life, so we are well matched and will no doubt end up together as each other’s One True Loves. Sadly, his love mathematics includes an already existing girlfriend, so our torrid Oh My God Look How Gorgeous He Is “relationship” isn’t ready for an engagement party yet. One day, we find ourselves on the same three-hour bus going to the railway station. On that bumpy ride, sitting thigh to thigh next to villagers holding chickens, I fall violently out of love. I realise to my horror that he is a really lovely person, with a droll sense of humour, who fosters stray dogs. I cannot un-know those facts to objectify his lovely appearance and his even lovelier cover drive. We are friends to this day, but the love math never added up for us.

So many summer loves, every year without fail, sometimes a few each summer. Life lessons learnt:

Summer love, if it causes pus-filled sores, is totally worth it if its mangoes whodunnit

Beware of creepy graduate students exchanging meaningful glances with middle-school kids

Sometimes a dead father can get someone you love to notice you, but after that you’re on your own

Always keep photos celebrities send you, when you’re shuddering about how ripe they possibly smell, cousins with more money than you are falling for them

Never get on a bus with someone you are madly in love with, they could turn out to be wonderful; which means your love is doomed

Finally — the best summer loves endure. But put your money on the mangoes and the swimming — there’s a better chance they will walk into the evening of your life with you as your One True Loves

Vatsala Mamgain loves food, cooking, running, trees, reading and telling long winded stories