Posted on May 31st, 2007 at 4:34 am by Ashutosh
For some couple of days I was noticing the rising inflow of Litchis in the fruit market. But all those litchis are not fully ripe as indicated by their pale and yellowish-red colour. Eventhough I thought them to be sweet enough as their sales seems to be robust.
When I got up today morning, I saw many parrots perching on trees in the garden. At first I thought their presence is because of the mangoes. But next moment, I recalled that my mother had already planned to pluck all the raw mangoes for preparing pickle. So these birds must have came to test the sweet litchis. I immediately went ahead and plucked a litchi fruit from a litchi tree. It was also not dark red and still pale-green as available in the market. But I peeled it with confidence and put whole of the litchi meat (with inedible seed) in my mouth. It was fresh, soft and too juicy …to swallow as the juice was sour though not bitter. That made me think why litchis are being sold while they are still sour!
Perhaps demand of the litchis has increased due to its acquiring a celebrity status these days. You must have heard the news of a Tendulkar - fan from Mujaffarnagar who gifts 1000 litchis to Sachin Tendulkar (…he would have to do a good amount of labour to count them to 1000 
) & other prominent cricket players every year and in return get match-tickets of all international cricket matches played by India. This news might have triggered the public interest in litchi and thus increasing its importance. Litchis can not only get you free match-tickets but people will be using it to get done all their works smoothly from the bureaucracy as well as a gift to their seniors to appease them by providing them a celebrity fruit! Infact some marketers may go a step ahead and launch a branded fruit in the market naming it Tendulkar Litchi 
Perhaps this Tendulkar Litchi phenomenon is creating more demand for litchis and people don’t mind its taste as it is already endorsed by a celebrity. Infact, litchis really taste great whether sweet or sour.