Inami Bagh, Punjab's Award-Winning Mango Orchards

From the ripe belt of Kandi to the orchards of Inami Bagh, Punjab has a long history of some of the choicest varieties of amb.

Speak of balmy Indian summers, and it won’t be long before the conversation moves to mangoes. Even though mangoes are ubiquitous across India, many will point you to the legendary northern orchards of Malihabad in Uttar Pradesh, known for the iconic Dussehri, and Banaras, for the inimitable Langda and Chausa. Venture east and into the hinterlands of Bihar, and you’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone that there is more to the mango basket than the famed Amrapali (named after the courtesan who left a life of pleasure to follow the Gautama Buddha).

Yet Punjab, once home to acres of mango orchards, as per many a chapter of north-western frontier history, finds little mention in the mango-stardom of today. Does the region no longer produce and supply mangoes, or is it simply overlooked? 

A Long History of Mango Cultivation

The Doaba region of Punjab, situated between the rivers Beas and Sutlej, is strewn with a rich belt of fertile mango orchards. Residents and historians in Doaba region point at the Kandi belt for the largest mango cultivation of the region, which include Ropar, Chandigarh, Garhshankar, Hoshiarpur, Dasuya and Pathankot.

An old saying goes, ‘Ni ambiyan nu tarsengi, chhad ke shehar Doaba’ – Step out of the Doaba, and you’ll crave the nectar of the region’s mangoes. Not long ago, the belt was famous for its endless orchards, and singular varieties of mango; little-known local specialties such as Aaroo; Anda (a rare, local oval-shaped breed); Pencil; the fennel-like aromatic Saunfi; and the somewhat better-known Sindhoori, with a deep red hue on one section of its skin.

Today, much of these varieties have disappeared from this once-fertile mango belt, and the most popular variant that you come across, driven by commercial demand, is Dussehri — growing abundantly alongside Totapuri, Kalmi and Langda. The latter three, along with Dussehri and Sindhoori, make for the five most common varieties found in the region today. There are several desi varieties that aren’t commercially viable, but have a charm and nostalgia deeply cherished within the communities there.

The sweet and robust Dussehri is commercially popular, used widely in mango milkshakes, but the flavours of the Totapuri and Sindhoori are lesser known. Totapuri is tangy, in contrast with the sweetness of more commercial varieties, and has a chewy quality that lends an extra bite. Sindhoori, meanwhile, is incredibly aromatic, firmer in texture, and its sweetness is often compared to honey.

And there are the desi varieties, eaten by sucking out the fruit without peeling the entire skin off. These varieties are less robust, don’t stock well, are not as fragrant, and perish easily, which is perhaps what make them unpopular in urban markets. But they have loyal local followings, and remain prized summer flavours in their own regions. These desi varieties are directly bought by local residents around orchards, when caretakers or owners put them out on display at farms. A lack of awareness, (and subsequently trust in the varieties), also puts off sellers from stocking them at shops and mandis – very much a chicken-and-egg situation, but one allows the mango ecosystem to thrive.

Inami Bagh, an Award-Winning Orchard

The mango orchard of Inami Bagh

It is here, while on a research project, that I stumbled upon Inami Bagh — a 13-acre orchard near Hoshiarpur that is today a biodiversity heritage site known for its unique varieties of mangoes. The century-old orchard is named for an award that was conferred upon it during the British regime, for its delicious varieties of mangoes. Inami Bagh was set-up well before the Partition, by the zaildar of the village Bassi Umar Khan. Soon after, it was passed on to a certain Ajit Singh, who subsequently moved abroad, leaving behind ancient mango trees that stood witness to Partition.

Somehow, somewhere in the century that gone by, Inami Bagh lost its place at the top of the mango charts. The orchard is a few miles from my ancestral family home, yet, no one seemed to know of its existence.

But interestingly enough, Inami Bagh is hardly the only orchard of its kind. Kamaljeet Kaur, whose family owns farm land in Garhshankar, continues to cultivate varieties of mango trees on their fields. During harvest season, Kaur’s family puts up a sign outside the farm, announcing that the mangoes are ready for harvest. People swarm to her fields, and the mangoes are sold out within hours.

People who grew up in this mango belt are hardly strangers to this. My father is one of them. “One must never pluck a mango from the tree — you would have to patiently wait for them to ripen on the tree, and then fall naturally off the branch. Then, you race ahead of everyone to collect it! Those are the sweetest varieties, and we called them tapka, simply because of how they fell on the ground,” he recalls.

Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu, a Punjab-based food writer and researcher, also has very similar memories of how the desi amb would turn into community events. “The tapkas would fall off the trees, and we’d immerse them in metal tubs loaded with smashed ice. Then, all of us cousins would gather around and relish the feast!” she says.

A Country-Wide Obsession

Kalmi mangoes collected at harvest, from the orchards in the Punjab belt

The inescapable beauty of mangoes in the Indian subcontinent has inspired much poetry: the Sufi poet Amir Khusro called it ‘Naghza tarin mewa Hindustan,’ the fairest fruit of Hindustan; Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, known better as Ghalib, called it ‘Rahmat-e-Khaas,’ a special grace; and Babur writes of the mango in Baburnama. Mangoes have been etched deep into our social fabric since time immemorial. In Punjab too, before henna was used to decorate the hands of the bride at weddings, two designs were unbiquitous — the first, a the circle at the centre of the palm, and the second, an ambi in the centre, with flowers strewn around – a sign of fertility for the bride. Mangoes were found in the intricate designs of tilla-work Punjabi juttis, Patialvi naadas, and even in hand-embroidered phulkaris.

Today, the story of Punjab’s mangoes reside deep within the hinterlands. Productivity and fertility of these orchards dipped due to a variety of reasons, including the cutting-down of trees in order to make way for broader highways, and long-term residents moving away to foreign lands, leaving the plantations unattended.

Those who tended to the mango trade have focused on varieties that are likely to be more resilient, to cater to the country’s commercial food systems. Sadly, this has led to many unique, indigenous varieties fading further into obscurity.

Nothing, perhaps, sums up Doaba’s mango story than the Punjabi saying, ‘Na pehla wala reha Malwa, na o Majha ji, kite reh gaya hun amba waala des Doaba ji?’

Vernika Awal is a food journalist who specialises in documenting the history and culture of Punjab.

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