Read in a newspaper that the first batch of Devgad mangoes arrived at Mumbai’s Crawford Market on March 18, rather late because of hailstorms in parts of Maharashtra. These were priced Rs 1,400-Rs.1,600 a dozen.
Who’ll buy them? Who has so much money that he would spend Rs. 1,400 for a dozen mangoes? ‘Aam’ is no longer for the aam aadmi. This ‘king of fruits’ is almost out-of-bounds for the commoner.
Mango is a fruit that has enriched literature. So many stories, real as well as apocryphal, are associated with this sublime fruit. Like cricket among all sports, mango among all fruits has lent itself to the folklore of Indian and subcontinental literature.
Viceroy Lord Wavell once jocularly told Gandhiji that foreign forces invaded India for no other reason than mangoes. Wavell was so fond of mangoes, especially the divinely aromatic Alphonso of Allahabad and Banaras, that he once wrote to his friend in England he was seriously thinking of settling down in India after his tenure as Viceroy because he would not get mangoes in England. The Hindi name langda (lame) for Alphonso intrigued him a lot. Any excuse, even if it’s lame, will do to sink the teeth into a heavenly ‘langda’ aam, he apparently used to say.
Akbar Allahabadi was also smitten by ‘langda aam’ of Uttar Pradesh. He wrote poetry on the golden coloured pulp of Alphonso and its green outer skin. He compared this particular phenomenon to a woman who looks hard from the outside but is ripe within. Langda also gives the impression of being hard and unripe because of its green skin, even when it’s ripe, but is unimaginably sweet and luscious inside.
The Urdu poet Shabbir Hasan Khan ‘Josh’ Malihabadi’s only weakness in life was mango. “Nothing weakens me more than mangoes,” the short-tempered great poet himself admitted. He belonged to Malihabad, 13 km from Lucknow where orchards of Dashahari mangoes, a species that is elongated, like a belan (rolling pin), abounded. Its juicy pulp is typically sucked out by mango-lovers. It is said that Dashahari should only be sucked out to extract its essence. Sliced, it doesn’t taste so well.
The entire Malihabad becomes aromatic with the mild fragrance of mangoes from the last week of February, and it lasts till mid-September. The place is dotted with amrai (orchards) and till the late-1990s, one could buy one kg of Dashahari for Rs. 20-25 at Malihabad. Now if you get to see it at all in the Pune or Mumbai markets, it costs Rs. 700-800 a kg. ‘Aam’ is thus becoming unreachable for the aam aadmi, a fruit that was most affordable once.
Abul Fazl’s Ain-e-Akbari mentions in its fourth chapter that Emperor Akbar used to distribute the best quality mangoes among the people of his kingdom. He was himself so fond of it that he’d preserve its slices in honey to relish it during the off-season months. Honey is a great preservative and mango slices dipped in honey for two to three months taste out-of-this-world.
Where is that romanticism? Today you get mangoes in all seasons, artificially ripened with chemicals. They taste so vapid that had they been available in the days of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, a great mango-lover, even donkeys wouldn’t eat them.
There is an anecdote in this context. One day Ghalib was having mangoes and casting away the skin. Some donkeys sniffed the mango-skins and left them untouched. A detractor, trying to pull Ghalib’s leg, quipped: ‘Ghalib sahab aapne dekha, gadhe bhi aam nahin khate!’ (Ghalib sahab, did you see, even donkeys don’t eat mangoes). Not to be outdone, Ghalib said: ‘Ji baja farmaya aapne, Gadhe hi aam nahin khaate’ (Yes, you’re right. Only donkeys don’t eat mangoes).
Alas, this is a wondrous fruit, but the commoner won’t be able to afford it.
sumitmaclean@hotmail.com
