Rajamallu

I was eight years old the first time my father brought me into the orchard and said — Watch the trees, they will tell you everything. I have not stopped watching since.

Nobody taught me from a book. I learned by being here, season after season. I know which branch to prune and which one to leave alone. I know when a tree is thirsty before it shows any sign. I can tell you a Banganapalli from an Imam Pasand by the shape of the leaf, and I can tell you a mango is two days from ready by the way it sits on the branch. You cannot learn that in a classroom. It takes years of standing in an orchard and paying attention.

For most of my life, I grew the fruit and strangers decided what it was worth. Every harvest, traders would come to my orchard, look at what I had spent an entire season caring for, name a price, and leave. I had no choice. My mangoes would end up in some city market 500 kilometres away, selling for three times what I received, and I would never know who ate them. I kept farming because I love this work. But that part always hurt.

My grandson built Tarulease so I could sell directly to the people who actually eat my Trees fruit. Now when the mangoes are ready, they go from my orchard to your door step in three - seven days. No warehouse. No carbide. No trader standing between us. When you lease a tree from me, I know your name. That means something to me.

I still walk the orchard before sunrise every morning. I check on every tree the way you check on someone in your family. I know when each one was planted, what year it gave its best yield, which branch had to be grafted and why. This has been my life's work for over four decades. You can taste that in the fruit.

If you want to see how this works, come visit. I will walk you through the orchard myself. I will show you how I read a tree, how I know when the fruit is ready, and why these mangoes taste different from what you find in the city. I never get tired of talking about it. You will leave understanding something about fruit that no one taught you.