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Mango Republics


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.

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