In my first year of Engineering, I was called out of the class for cricket selections. Ground was already occupied by many seniors of my branch, and without any hesitancy, I questioned myself-”Did I commit a mistake by raising hand when seniors asked for guys who knew cricket??”. Before I could answer to my self made question, I was called by a senior with whom I can surely win Heavy Weight Competition. He asked me to bowl for sometime as I told him that I'm a bowler. After my break-less bowling for nearly an hour, he came to me and told that I got selected. He also told sweetly that you are not going to play in the match as the team got already filled. As a junior, I didn't had any words that day, but I was dare enough to ask him for his name. He simply said “I'm mango”. I thought he was hiding his actual name as seniors generally do.
Many days later, in my 2nd year, I met mango again for the same reason Cricket. During our match practising, our Physical Trainer (named as Pitapuram by Mango) came to us and talked to us. In between talks, he addressed Mango with the same name Mango. Then I came to a conclusion that Mango is not just the name used by students. That day, I eagerly asked mango for his actual name, and he said- “my name is Rajesh, but most of them call me mango”.
Later, in my 3rd year 2nd semester, mango joined our batch as he got detained due to lack of attendance. As I was already familiar to this guy, I never felt him as a new face. With in few days, we were turned in to good friends. One fine day, I eagerly asked him about the story behind his name mango.
He said- “In my first year, I used to be bit weird towards seniors. One day, in bus, one of my senior asked me for mango fruit. I told him “as it is winter, we wont get those fruits now”. Senior took my words as a chance and asked me to bring mangoes the next day. I took that as a funny deal and didn't think of it. That evening, when I was out, to my surprise I found mangoes. As a junior, I thought of fooling that senior and bought those mangoes immediately. Next day, the mango lover asked me for mangoes, and within no time I kept those unripened mangoes in his hands. He was speechless. I think the news of mangoes spread like wildfire in his class. The same evening, when I came out of our block, I saw seniors sitting on the lawn. One girl from my seniors, who knew the story of mangoes called me-“Oye”. Though I knew that she was calling me, I didn't respond. After trying twice, she called me- “Mango”, and I looked at her. That's it, my name Mango started that way”. I was continuously laughing in the bus after hearing to his story as I never heard this sort of story behind a nickname.
Later on, I enjoyed his company every time. I still remember, one day when I asked him an unanswerable question, mango's reply was a song- “ee usha kiranaaluu...” (a starting song in ETV channel). I was shocked in happiness and gave him a tight hug when he came to my place in the night on my birthday. We used to enjoy sitting in Ramu dhaba. It was because of him, my cell phone's speaker got repaired as he always used to listen my phone songs with maximum volume. I couldn't forget the day when I got eliminated in one of the interview, as this guy made me feel much better. Though I'm missing those days with him, my days with mango will be stored forever in my heart..
