The Season of Exploding Mangoes

Except,that is,for mangoes.

Its not that Im not grateful that something comes along to make these weeks of high summer half-bearable. I just wonder,sometimes,why the richest,pulpiest most warming,the Ayur veda would say fruit of all comes along at the hottest time of year. And relatively briefly; the mango seems the fruit most resistant to modern,season-free growing and eating habits.

Nothing is more a seasons fruit. Everything about how we eat and imagine mangoes is defined by their being locally,briefly abundant,at a time of year when you just cant store things for too long. It explains why we overeat. Or at least,it explains why I do. I can never look at a pile of mangoes without worrying that this is the last week theyll be sweet,and thus I should eat the entire pile so I can go out and buy some more. As Ghalib,who sweltered through more than his share of Delhi summers,used to say like clockwork every June,no doubt,causing his long-suffering wife to groan something in less-than-chaste Urdu under her breath in reply Aam meethe hon aur bahut se hon.

And not just lots of them,but lots of kinds,too. Some other fruit apples,for one come in varieties as well,but we obsess only over mangoes. Mango varieties become a matter of ethnic pride. I dont like Alphonsos that much,truthfully sorry,Mr Thackeray,I mean the hapus mango but if I try mentioning that to even the mildest-mannered west-coaster,they look at me like a Shiv Sainik whos just been told it is possible to name too many things after Shivaji.

I love,most of all,slender,explosively flavourful Dasheris and then Langras,rather than rose-touched,slightly under-ripe Himsagars,marking me out in this respect as more Awadhi than Bengali. Of course,had I been more Punjabi,I would have defended the dignity of the overstuffed,juicy Chaunsa with all the resources at my command. And had I been South Indian at all,I would have stood stout in support of the Banganpalli or the Suvarnarekha.

It is because of the time at which mangoes ripen,perhaps,and the difficulty of transporting something so thin-skinned and pulpy and sugar-rich across a large country in the middle of a hot summer,that these varieties have survived and thrived. Ghalib again,in a letter to a friend: What do you have in your town that is not available to me here? Mangoes I very much crave… But what means are there to ensure their arrival here intact,if they are sent all the way from Bombay or Surat? The Malda is known to us here as the Vilayati,and as a matter of fact,tastes quite good….But sending mangoes from Surat is not worth the bother. Four rupees in postage for mangoes costing a single rupee,and then perhaps 10 in a 100 arrive without decay… After all,Nawab Sahib sends gifts of mangoes from his orchards in Rampur frequently. And only today came 200 from a friend in Bareilly… Eighty-three turned out good.

Which brings us to the other point about mangoes: theyre gifts. Always,always. People with trees can never eat them all; they give them away. Given how brief is their season,how difficult they are to transport without spoiling and in extreme cases,exploding and killing dictators they are best given away to our neighbours.

And so theyve entered our national consciousness as something you share,rather than something you hoard and eat alone. Pandit Nehru,always happy with an Indian tradition as long as it was tasty and economical,took them all over the place. He sent them to his daughters and friends in jail. They were his going-away present to the Mountbattens. He gave a box to George Bernard Shaw,as well,and showed that most ferocious of vegetarians how they should be eaten. He took a thousand to the Soviet Union,causing suspicion and avarice in America. Mangoes are for giving.

Its an oven outside,or a steam-bath,or a hot shower. People are snappy and irritable. But theyll cheer up if you give them a mango. Just dont get them started on what kind they like. n

mihir.sharmaexpressindia.com