Amritsar Calling: With summer here, can the Mango Party be far behind?

This year though, the Mango Fest has only just begun. We saw the signs of flowering in spring – “Boor nikal aya hai” – with an air of expectancy and some salivation, as the images of this luscious fruit streamed through the mind like an Instagram storyboard on autorun. As the cuckoo, our very own melody queen, the koel, begins its call, and the doves, the pigeons and the parrots compete to be heard, summer is not far away. This spring sprang a surprise by blending into summer in April itself, leaving most of us affirming the impact of climate change yet again. Nature has a way of reminding us of its existence when its parameters change, abetted by the evil of mankind’s misdemeanours, and usually aided by our continued insensibilities towards it.

On my morning walk, I parody the call of the koel with delight, as it scoots from the garlanded yellow of the amaltas to the red crimson bouquet of the gul mohars, and ducks into the ambi laden mango tree of our neighbours, Shomi-Romi and brothers. This simple and pleasing quad is a pleasure to chat with and is happy to share the fruit of their two mango trees with the avian world as well as the odd kids who wave sticks and chuck stones to fetch a booty of sour greens. A few girls can be seen smacking their lips and clicking their tongues, one eye closed as a consequence of the sour hit of the baby fruit on the palate. What relish! The parrots of course are having a rave party, screeching, and chomping away.

The littlest tasteless fruit, knocked off by a mistaken tug of the twig, becomes a plaything for our canine twosome on the street, Katrina and her teenage daughter Cookie. They run around like frolicking maids in a flower garden, tossing the unripe fruit upon the road and then chasing it in fun, much as my absolute pet, Biba watches on the wayside, more intent on her morning discoveries rather than girlish frivolity.

We were able to get the first of our boxes of the Deogarh Alphonsos last month to set the ball rolling for the season. Our annual search for organic, naturally ripened fruit had begun. These are the Ratnagiri brethren that make their way from Maharashtra fetching kings’ ransoms from those kidnapped by the urges of a full year of yearning. As one friend commented, the ‘Katle-Aam’ has truly begun, the massacre of the mango, with knives sharpened for that ultimate cut to the fruit, the slicing of its giving flesh, and devouring of its bounties. This is one bounty even the vegans plunge into.

At about the same time as the Alphonso, the northern Safedaa makes its appearance. A much larger fruit rendered tasteless with induced hormonal surges and ripened with a vengeance, it is a victim of a chemical onslaught in a race to hit the shelves earliest. Although a cheaper fruit available in large numbers, it suffers from grower indiscretion and seller inhumanity – ‘Kee kareeye, masalae vich pakaana paenda ne.’ Also, visible soon enough are the other lesser varieties, the Tota Pari, and the Perry that find their way to the stalls. By now, the party is warming up and the Sindhoori joins the floor to tango. It is perhaps the most colourful mango, and its red and yellow and green beckons you with its beauty and its tangy taste.

But the real fruit of the region, the King Mango, demands patience and arrives later at its own convenience just before the monsoons. This is the Langrah, but by no means is it disadvantaged or one with special needs. The Langrah loosely translated as the one-legged one or the one that limps along is quite the misnomer since this is perhaps the most deliciously equipped of the bunch. It has no qualms in retaining its green colour from ‘ambi-dom to ripe-dom, as if brazenly overconfident of its character and open unwillingness to change. This ‘take it or leave it’ attitude makes it the leader of the pack. It comes along with its sweet sister mango, the slim and elegant Dashehri. The two rule the roost through most of the summer and the rainy season.

Buckets full of these are carried off to the village tube wells, the Bambi’s, for baths under the full force of the farm water sources. As the rice paddies need to be flooded, the families make good use of the flowing tube wells by chilling in the pool, the ‘hauddi’, splurging on the fruit of the season. While the Dashehri is sucked straight through, the larger Langrah, with a peelable skin that otherwise irritates the throat, is deskinned and then eaten like savages down to the stone seed with relish. The dainties and the fork and spoon kinds do partake in the feast at home, but as one-inch squares, chopped and presented in bowls on dining tables with cloth napkins at hand. To each his own, I guess. Meanwhile, the real party steps out of the ‘hauddis’ and the swimming pools with shrivelled fingers and bloated bellies.

In many of the villages during the good old times, the first harvest of mangoes from the orchard and the first batch of jaggery from your cane sugar fields would be shared with the schoolteacher and the rest of the village folks. Much as today cardboard boxes of the fruit are picked off the market and sent to the officialdom or the newly married daughters’ in-laws, or friends for that matter.

Bearing towards the end of the season, the grand finale is the Chausaa. This is a mango I find splurge-some. It comes hand in hand with its little, short-lived nephew, the Tapka. Among the 1,500 odd varieties listed by the National Horticulture Board of India, of which a thousand are adjudged as commercial, the Langrah and the Chausaa sustain the mango season the longest. These stone fruits are truly local and can easily be called superfoods, what with the twenty-plus vitamins and minerals they provide, free of fat, cholesterol, or sodium. And just 200 calories to a mango treat. Except that it is downright difficult to zip your mouth or de-tickle the tastebuds with just one, so the weighing scale does dance till you subjugate your urge to splurge.

The season’s ubiquitous mango finds its way into the lexicon of the Amritsari befitting its omnipresence otherwise. Throughout the year, the fruit is remembered each time someone pokes a nose with too much counter questioning even though he is benefitting from a largesse. The normal reprimand is “Amb khan naal matlabh rakh, guthlian naa gin”- keep your mind on what you are getting and not the how and where-froms. And if someone is truly digging deep and needs to be snubbed, “Puchhey koi tainu, toon amb laene ne.”

In fact, our comedian turned Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann cannot resist the temptation either. When asked just a few weeks into his tenure as to when he will deliver on the promises in his manifesto, he was quick to respond that the seed of his government’s mango tree is yet too nascent to bear fruit, “Ajj he amb di ghuthli beeji hai, ajj he puchhdey ho amb kyon ne lagge.” Some of course retorted that the CM should have planted sponge gourds instead for a quicker harvest.

But all said and done, do plant every seed of this native fruit of the season, to set your sinful ecological count straight and to share the joy that you derived with not just other brethren but the birds that share your skies as well. Wand khao khand khao sajjno!