:: Shekhar Bhatia

Have you located the equator of the mango?

Shekhar Bhatia

I enjoy my Sunday morning chats with my fruitwallah. He wheels his cart from house to house, selling fresh seasonal fruit — oranges and apples in winter; peaches and grapes in spring; and melons, lychees and mangoes in summer. Earlier, apples used to be seasonal; now we get them all through the year.

I ask why the Langra mangoes don’t look fresh and he says the crop hasn’t been good this summer because of the intense heat. "Woh murjha gaye", he says, meaning the heat has shrivelled the fruit. But I have seen better Langras in the market — larger, firmer, a deeper shade of green, and quite naturally more expensive than the ones sold by my fruit vendor. I suspect he wants me to buy the more expensive Safeda, the large, pale yellow mango from Uttar Pradesh that no doubt has more flesh and is juicier. But it’s not in the same league as the Langra.

The Langra develops black patches during the monsoon. That’s the end of this fibrous mango. He says then he will bring the bright yellow Chausa that will linger till the end of the summer. At times I think you can measure the length of the summer in north India by looking at the fruit vendor’s cart — from the first Safeda in May to the last Chausa in August.

I am not hung up on the Langra — be it from Uttar Pradesh or Malda in West Bengal, though I haven’t seen the latter variety in north India. Our man says the variety he brings is from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He is from Jharkhand.

I asked him about the legendary Langra from Benares and he just smiled. That’s his way of saying they are very expensive. My granduncle used to talk about the Langra in Multan, Pakistan; he would cup his hands as he described the size of the fruit.

When I was very young and living in a distant suburb of Mumbai, there used to be a cluster of mango trees behind our house. I don’t know who owned the trees but a guard would keep an eye on the neighbourhood kids. That grove was a shortcut to the school, the movie hall that used to show English films on Sunday morning, and the railway station from where we would catch the local train to go downtown with our father and uncle.

The gardeners would sell the fruit that had fallen to the ground. I remember my mother making aam ka panna (green mango sherbet), and years later my father showed us how to make the instant south Indian pickle with small, raw mangoes. Instant, because it did not need to be matured in the sun.

In India, everyone has their favourite mango — they talk about the smell, the feel and, of course, the divine taste. Some say it’s the Happus, the colloquial term for the prized Alphonso of Mumbai. It is said that the best quality Alphonso comes from a place called Devgadh in western India because of the nature of its soil. I have always associated Alphonsos with Ratnagiri because the fruitsellers in Mumbai used to shout, "Ratnagiri ka asli hafoos" (the real Ratnagiri Alphonso). Naturally they are pricey: Alphonsos are sold by the dozen; other varieties of mango by weight.

Even I thought the Alphonso is to die for (I still bring back cartons if I travel to Mumbai during the season) till I moved up north and developed a taste for the Langra. I like both. I have friends who think the Alphonso is quite overrated. They swear by other varieties: north Indians glorify the Dussheri — not so much flesh, but a lot of juice; friends who have lived in Kolkata get nostalgic about the Himsagar; and those brought up in Andhra talk about Banganpalli, Suvarnarekha and Imam-Pasand. "Andhra’s Alampur Baneshan is mango for the connoisseur, not a beginner", writes in Allen Susser in The Great Mango Book.

For the Hindus, the mango is an auspicious tree; they hang a string of mango leaves across the doorway during festivals and weddings. The traditional ambi design in Indian textiles, shawls and jewellery is inspired by the shape of the mango. This Indian design was copied and mass produced as the paisley shawl, named after the town of Paisley in Scotland.

The mango originated in India. Buddhist monks took it further East as far back as 5th century BC. The Indian name for the fruit was "mangay"; the Portuguese who settled in western India called it "manga". They took it to South America and the West Indies aboard their ships. Allen Susser says in his book that Alexander the Great found mangoes in the Indus Valley in 327 BC. In 1889, the US department of agriculture took mangoes from Mumbai for planting in Florida.

The Jamaicans have a mango called Mumbai. In Dr No, the first James Bond movie, Ursula Andress sings, "Underneath the mango tree, me honey and me can watch for the moon" on a Jamaican beach, and what a scene it was! I have tasted a Florida variety called Tommy Atkins and it had no flavour. In fact, it didn’t come anywhere near our idea of a mango. I once tried to grow a dwarf variety in our backyard but it died. I am still hoping to try my luck again after the rains.

Mangoes are also a messy fruit to eat. God help you if are on a train seated next to a family that digs into the fruit, slurping noisily and dribbling the juice all over the place. Trust me, I’ve been through it.

Those who have grown up on mangoes know how not to make a fool of oneself. I have come across innumerable websites that give you step-by-step directions on how to slice, dice or eat the fruit. Some start with "Locate the equator of the mango…" I rather like the one below:

1. Firmly grasp a mango between your hands.

2. Firmly yet softly squeeze and knead the mango, turning it around as you squeeze the flesh inside into mush and juice. Take care not to inadvertently puncture, rupture, or tear the flesh.

3. Bring the mango up to your mouth and firmly bite down, creating a small hole from which it is possible to suck the juice.

4. Suck firmly and evenly and squeeze as you suck.

I leave the rest to your imagination.

Shekhar Bhatia can be contacted at shekhar.bhatia@gmail.com