Yesterday Suman, a friend who lives down the stairs, handed me a
mango. It was one of the few she in turn had been gifted by her brother who in
turn had been gifted by…. Well, this was no ordinary mango: it was an
Alphonso, and therefore it was an act of real generosity for her to part with
one. I had never tasted the fabled Alphonso,
could hardly believe I had one in my hand. She shrugged that she thought it
overrated, but ok, an Alphonso, is an Alphonso, she said, why not taste it and
decide.
I realised, going up the stairs holding my precious Alphonso,
that I had actually tasted one, not a month ago, in London. Only, I had clean
forgotten it. To those of us used to the Benishaan, the Chausa, the Langra and
the Sindoori, the vital thing is that
lovely tangy twist that gives mangoes character. Their tastes unroll on the
tongue layer by layer. I had forgotten eating the Alphonso because it
was merely nice: sweet, pleasant, uncomplicated.
 |
| photo courtesy: enjoyingindia.com |
Yet Bombaywallas regard every other mango with
contempt. My view is that
the international fame the Alphonso has grabbed is no more than a marketing coup, maybe
in-product selling via Bollywood. Why is it almost the only Indian mango known
by name outside India?
At the London shop where my friend Munni was buying the
Alphonsos I ate last month, a polite, very Angrez disagreement took place
because the chit of a till-girl, hardly twenty and not even desi, flicked her
blonde hair and informed us that she thought Pakistani mangoes were better. My friend smiled and corrected her.
The young woman stood by her views, she even sneered a bit. My blood frothed
immediately with what Shivam Vij calls mango nationalism: how dare she!
He’s written about it so entertainingly I won’t even try:
“I am telling nothing but the truth when I tell you that
Indian mangoes are better than Pakistani mangoes. It infuriates me when
Pakistanis don't agree. That makes mangoes an India-Pakistan dispute just like
Kashmir. … What annoys me further is that there are Pakistanis who claimed to
have tasted Indian mangoes and still think Pakistani mangoes are better. The
problem with such Pakistani mango lovers is that they are Pakistanis first and
mango lovers second. Which is not to say I have tasted Pakistani mangoes. Why
would I do that when I get to eat the world's best mangoes? India has over
1,200 varieties of mangoes, Pakistan only 400.” (Read the rest here)
The sudden Indo-Pak rivalry via a Western mediator at a
London grocery reminded me of Maulvi Sahab, protagonist of Joginder Paul’s, Khwabrau [The Sleepwalkers,
transl. Sukrita Paul Kumar]. Exiled to Karachi at Partition, Maulvi Sahab is
haunted by all he has lost, and decides he still lives in Lucknow, not Karachi.
One of his greatest griefs in his makebelieve world is that he can no longer
eat Lucknow’s Malihabadi mangoes: “Don’t you find it strange that we eat the
mangoes grown here but our hearts can be satisfied only by the clay imitations
of Malihabadi mangoes?” Hakim Sahab, another character in this novel is
obsessed with creating a chemically engineered replica of the Malihabadi mango
in Karachi. It doesn’t work of course. Lucknow’s mangoes can grow only in
Lucknow.
I feel helpless outrage abroad as Europeans eating giant,
shapeless, tasteless pretenders from South America inform me that they think mangoes
are overrated, Indians needlessly rhapsodise over them. What do they know of
mangoes who have never been in India in summer and allowed a chilled mouthful to slide down their throats when the air is shimmering outside at 45 degrees and the hot wind is crisping up leaves into papad? You can only pity them.
There is a reason why Mirza Ghalib (1797 – 1869) mourned at
60 that he could no longer eat “more than ten or twelve at a sitting... and if
they are large ones, then a mere six or seven. Alas, the days of youth have
come to an end, indeed, the days of life itself have come to an end." (Read the article from which this quote is taken.)
He was talking about Indian mangoes. Probably not Alphonsos
though, since he lived in north India and there was no DHL mango-post then.