Having roots in the Konkan belt of Maharashtra brings a different joy to summer; the season of mangoes and jackfruit feels less like a season and more like an emotion.
Recently, I relished an exceptionally sweet and delicious jackfruit that came from a tree planted years ago by an uncle on my parents’ farm and lovingly nurtured by my parents over decades.
I remember how passionately they would talk about mango trees, jackfruit trees, flowering seasons, rainfall, grafting, and harvests.
As children, we often listened casually, never truly understanding the depth of their attachment and excitement.
But while eating that jackfruit, a beautiful realisation struck me I was literally enjoying the fruits of “their” labor.
Not just the physical labor of watering, protecting, nurturing, and waiting patiently for years… but also the emotional investment, foresight, and care with which they built a life for us.
And perhaps that is what parenting truly is.
Parents plant seeds whose fruits they may never fully consume themselves.
They nurture values, habits, discipline, kindness, resilience, and culture quietly through everyday actions. Often without lectures, without announcements.
Children may not understand it immediately.
But years later, those very seeds appear in our thoughts, choices, behaviours, and lives.
This experience also reminded me of something deeply important as a parent myself. Children inherit far more from our actions than from our instructions.
Just like my parents unknowingly taught me patience, care, consistency, and the joy of nurturing through the way they lived, I too am constantly planting seeds through my own behaviour.
The values I wish to see in my children cannot merely be spoken about.
They must be lived.
Because one day, long after the moments have passed, our children too will unknowingly enjoy the fruits of what we chose to plant in their lives.