Growing up in Bombay in the ‘80s was a unique and special experience. Living in a bustling, cosmopolitan city which was fast becoming a melting pot of cultures through people that converged from all parts of India into this city of dreams, to try their luck, make a life for themselves and leave a lasting mark of their culture on the city – every day brought something new to learn, something new to experience.

I grew up in the suburb of Andheri and the building complex we lived in had about two dozen apartments. The families came from all areas of India – Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab and of course Maharashtra itself.

It was a time in Bombay and in the world in general when religious and cultural barriers were almost non-existent and families from all castes and communities got together and celebrated every festival and occasion with equal enthusiasm and vigour, without giving the caste, culture or creed of the occasion a second thought. Of course we did not realise just how special this was at the time. It was like living in a little India. We had the honour of experiencing the richness of every culture across the country, while remaining within that small apartment complex. We found happiness in the smallest of things, and every day was joyful and full of new experiences to look forward to.

One of the very special times of the year when this unity in diversity was demonstrated in a wonderful way, was during pickle-making season.

The scorching heat of summer brought with it that glorious time window in Mother Nature’s calendar that had all the necessary pre-requisites to make wonderful pickles that could be stored and enjoyed through the year.

The entire apartment complex transformed into a flurry of activity. The fragrances wafting from each apartment would fool a visitor into thinking they had landed in a spice mill.

And the building terrace! It was the ultimate point of convergence for all the activity. Spices would be laid out to dry on the terrace until the sun crisped them up so they could be powdered or pounded into the required consistency.

Some women would mix all the ingredients for their pickle in a clear bottle, cover with a thin muslin cloth and place it on top of the great big water tanks to catch the sun and literally, let the sun’s heat act as the catalyst for a few days to meld all the flavours together into a delicious and cohesive whole.

Still others like my mother would have great big buckets of raw mangoes that would have been soaked in a salt-turmeric mixture and would now be brought up to the terrace to be sun-dried. A spice and oil mixture would then be prepared and these mangoes mixed with spices and stored carefully for a few months until they were pronounced ready for consumption.

Almost anything that could be pickled would be pickled. The raw mango of course stood head and shoulders above the rest. While some would take the spicy route, still others would conjure up sweet and sour pickles. The type of oil, combination of sugar and/or spice and the preparation of the mango itself resulted in a staggering variety of pickles just from raw mangoes.

The next ingredient that held a lofty place in the land of pickles was the lemon. Depending on the part of India you chose your recipe from, the lemon could be a spicy, sweet or sour pickle. I recall my Marwadi friends sharing this absolutely blackened lemon which tasted like a slice of heaven. Lemon would be pickled with salt and left for years without so much as a glance, a testament of the patience and self-control that would be exercised to let the lemon work its magic.

Still other unusual ingredients like the native dried fish and prawns, turmeric root, vegetables like carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, small onions, garlic, Indian gooseberries, the gongura leaves of Andhra… the list literally went go on and on, such was the plethora of ingredients available to play with.

Since the entire apartment complex would be in the midst of pickling, it was common for women to go shopping in groups and visit wholesale stores to source ingredients at very economical rates and then split the ingredients among those who would be making the same type of pickles. It wasn’t unusual either for a group of women to make a few types of pickles jointly in bulk, and then divide the bounty among themselves.

The efforts put in by the women into organising, sourcing, processing, scheduling and creating mouth-watering pickles for the entire year for their families was something amazing to watch.

Their enthusiasm would remain high even if other things like work, home and children also needed to be taken care of. They all pitched in, turning the pickle-making season into something the entire community got together to pull off.

Most women would attempt to step out of their native comfort zone and prepare pickles based on recipes collected over the years from their neighbours and friends. Thus, it wasn’t unusual for my mother to make her signature Aavakkaai pickle but also manage to whip up a Gujarati Chunda at the same time. Once, my mother learnt a recipe from our Malayali neighbour and made this absolutely amazing pickle involving fresh green pepper!

Today when I think back on those days of my childhood, enriched all the more by the different families and friends I made over time, it reminds me of the words uttered by Gus Portokalos in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding – “So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.”

If there was ever a day-to-day example of unity in diversity, this was it. Life gave us mangoes and lemons. And we made pickles!