“Aishwarya” is the sweetest but “Akhilesh” sells more than “Modi”. No, we are not talking of celebrities here but of mango varieties named after them.
“Aishwarya” is the sweetest but “Akhilesh” sells more than “Modi”. No, we are not talking of celebrities here but of mango varieties named after them.
Kalimullah Khan, better known as the mango man in Uttar Pradesh, has been developing new varieties of the fruit, year after year, and names them after politicians, sport stars and film stars.
“The Akhilesh mango sells more than the Modi mango even though the taste of the latter is more sublime. The Aishwarya mango is also much in demand because of its sweetness,” says the 75-year-old mango grower who has also been conferred a Padma Shri for his mango initiatives.
Kalimullah Khan packs varieties of mangoes named after celebrities and sends it across to them.
“A few of them acknowledge and thank me, others do not,” he says.
In 2014, Mr Khan developed the Modi mango and in 2016 it is Akhilesh mango that is being cultivated in his orchard in Malihabad, on the outskirts of Lucknow.
The mango grower denies that he is seeking popularity by naming the fruit after celebrities. “The intention is to reflect the beauty of the characters they are named after.”
His biggest achievement, however, is the single tree on which he has developed 300 varieties of mango and it was this that won him the Padma Shri.
