Going mangoes
THE idiom is ‘going bananas’, but just because we are accused of becoming such a republic, we need not limit ourselves to clichés and should coin a proverb in keeping with the indigenous ‘king of fruits’.
Other than grapes, it is difficult to imagine another fruit except for mango that whips up such deep emotions of attachment, longing, and partisanship bordering on chauvinism, at least in the South Asian context.
Grapes have an undue ‘spiritual’ advantage, while mangoes, to the best of my knowledge, have not caught any distiller’s fancy so far. Apart from their fermented transcendence into the imagination of poets, grapes do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to any comparison, even with Langra, a variety of mango whose very name means lame.
More on poets later. Let us, for the moment, bask in the mango’s superiority and trample the grapes some more. What do they offer? White and black, seeded and seedless types, and only about 10 popular varieties. Mangos, on the other hand, offer hundreds of commercially grown varieties worldwide.
Only the king of fruits could have saved the situation.
Can the grape partisans cite one admonition, from a reputable source, of irreverence towards it, that is, in its natural state, not the processed, aged, and bottled variety? Mango has a giant like Mirza Ghalib advocating for it. He declared those devoid of a taste for it ‘jackasses’.
People returning to their homelands after toiling abroad for a lifetime offer myriad reasons. The most romantic, or maybe outright crazy, in this regard came from a fellow Pakistani. Asked what caused his return, he quipped, “Mangoes, monsoon, and madness.” Notice the sequence? Some of us have our priorities straight, or twisted, depending on your POV.
An unsuspecting social media user recently posted about 12 mango varieties and their corresponding growing regions in the Indian states. Spain has a tradition of a tomato fight, but it is in a festive, playful realm, whereas this ‘sacrilege’ committed by a well-meaning but ill-prepared mango influencer caused a tsunami — the PTI does not have a monopoly over apoplectic reactions — of indignation. Starting from ‘how dare you restrict the royal lineage of the mango to a dozen or so offspring’, to taking exception to one’s state being bracketed with an adjacent mango-growing territory, it was reprimand galore. While some Maharashtrian commentators graciously accepted the co-ownership of Alphonso with Karanatak, others fiercely objected to every Alphonso being called ‘Hapus’ and advised unsuspecting buyers to check the GI tags and scan the barcode to protect against the pretenders.
The writer is guilty of being extremely parochial when it comes to mangoes and Sindh’s status as at least the first-among-equals in Pakistan’s mango-growing areas. An office lunch almost turned into a fruit fight when an otherwise intelligent and wise colleague suggested that ‘Chaunsa’ was superior to Sindhri. What prevented a lunge across the table was the fact that the family of the gent in question had migrated from UP to KP, and the latter’s lack of competition with mango-growing Sindh and Punjab made him a somewhat less suspicious dissenter. However, what saved everyone in the cafeteria from a harangue on the Sindhri’s superiority was, instead, a mango fact-check. The correct name is not ‘Chaunsa,’ but ‘Chausa’. The mango variety is named after its place of origin in Bihar.
The stunned silence had to be broken by a consolation admission that our Punjab has its own excellent varieties of mangoes like Anwar Ratol. However, the fact that the name sounds like a popular disinfectant was too good a jibe to miss. The origins of the variety in the district of Rataul, UP, were left out to soften the blow.
While the madness abounded, the monsoon roared outside; only mangoes could have saved the situation. As luck would have it, the sole dessert on offer that afternoon was perfectly cut cubes of mango. As everybody shovelled in the sweet treat, someone suggested it tasted like Banginapalli. The sense of relief at the suggestion that it was none of the suspected and debated varieties was palpable as stout backs slumped into siesta postures in the cafeteria chairs. The variety’s origins in the Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh, were left out as a peace offering.
The ghus kar marenge (hot pursuit) refrain needs to be transformed to aam kay aam, guthlion kay daam (a win-win) aspiration. Maybe, it is time for a new round of mango diplomacy. After all, Akbar Allahabadi’s Langra walked all the way to Allama Iqbal’s table in Lahore. Regardless of the result of the Indian elections, crates of our best mangoes should be sent to both Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi and wherever the Aam Aadmi Party leader happens to be.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2024