Hazaribagh, April 24: It's summer time and mango trees across India are thick with the juicy tropical fruit. But, in Karamba village of Tatijharia block, 40km from the district headquarters, the hanging bunches of Mangifera indica also have an extraordinary sibling - the cellphone.

Villagers of Karamba, where development projects are few and far between, have discovered a bizarre way of catching the elusive mobile network. They hang their phones to a mango tree at the village square, where the network bar glows alive, and lower branches to make or receive calls.

"The phones never ring inside our homes. The network is always missing. But, the 30-feet-tall mango tree is like our natural mobile tower. Phones somehow catch signal near it. Earlier people climbed the tree to make calls; nowadays, they tie the handset to the branches so that network is always available," said Shikari Manjhi, a farmer who owns the land on which the mango tree stands.

Karamba, not very far from Hazaribagh town and barely 13km from the Tatijharia block development office, misses a lot more than just mobile network. There are no proper roads, two hand pumps serve drinking water to a population of 200 and the village of 60-odd children has only one primary school.

Primarily farmers - and naïve too - most of them don't complain about missing government projects and schemes, but mobile network is their lifeline. That is what keeps them connected to the developing world beyond Karamba. Unfortunately, the village has no power lines and to even charge cellphones, people need to walk to neighbouring Amnari.

Asked how the mango mobile tower was discovered, Manjhi said, "A year or so ago, a local lad who had climbed the tree found his cellphone suddenly ringing. He was surprised to find proper network and kept climbing the tree for the next few days to make calls. The word spread and people followed in his footsteps."

Soon, it became common knowledge that the mango tree offered mobile network and instead of climbing it to make a call, villagers decided to hang their phones so that they could receive calls too.

Rohan Manjhi, another villager, said everyone hanged their handsets in the morning and removed them before retiring to bed. "When a call comes, someone or the other informs the owner of the phone. We have been doing this for a year, thanks to the mango tree. Someday, our village will have better connectivity," Rohan held on to hope.