Romancing the Mango
To say Indians are obsessed with mangoes is putting is gently. The summer fruit has found its way into cuisine, poetry, politics, poetry, folklore, and international trade relations. Saachi D’Souza maps the deep footprint of the country’s most beloved fruit.
A day after unseasonal rains clogged the streets of Panaji, Goa, in March I made my way to the market hoping to get some mangoes for the family. It didn’t require much search — it usually doesn’t — since the first fruit vendor kept his display loud and proud. I chose three common favourites — Mankurad, hapoos (or Alphonso) and the classic, raw mango kacchi kairi.
The vendor made a face when I asked about this year’s stock. “It hasn’t been a good year for mangoes,” he tells me. It was also exceptionally early for his robust display of fruit, nevertheless, customers were lined up.
The mango season for India began with some politicisation. After Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief, Arvind Kejriwal, was imprisoned over corruption charges, news came about that the severely diabetic leader was ‘secretly’ increasing his sugar levels with mangoes and sweets from his home. (It was later reported that he was denied insulin). The result was a widespread, national debate on the sugar content in mangoes, how many were consumed, and why, at all, mangoes? News channels, with the help of ‘experts’ from all fields, extensively dissected Kejriwal's mango consumption. No fruit has received better pre-season marketing.
An Obsession Without Borders
The mango is hardly a perplexing fruit.
Almost every Indian will trace a variety of mango to a childhood memory, and nearly every story involves a parental indoctrination into the fantastical world of a fruit beloved in ways that cannot be quantified.
You smell it, swirl it around your hand, inspect its colouring, and take the gamble. The desires built around the fruit far exceed one's imagination. Most descriptive of the mango is its far-reaching quality; it satisfies almost every taste, every cultural flavour, and every soulful craving. Of course, every self-respecting Indian will identify as a mango expert; able to discern quality simply from colour and aroma.
It is remarkable how one fruit has travelled across time, borders and taste buds, from mentions in the Mahabharata, to Jain and Buddhist literature; the Mughal expansion of mango trees, to, well, Ariana Grande. In the early summer of 2019, the pop star pinned a poem about her favourite fruit on X (formerly Twitter). The tweet read,
"He Visits My Town Once A Year,
He visits my town once a year.
He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar. I spend all my money on him.
Who, girl, your man? No, a mango."
The verse is from a collection titled In the Bazaar of Love by Amir Khusrau, one of the greatest poets of Medieval India.
An Obsessive Love For Alphonso
The poet Mirza Ghalib was a devout mango lover, stating with prescient clarity, the mango’s most crucial feature: ‘There are only two essential points to mangoes — they should be sweet, and they should available in plenty’. Ghalib was talking about the Pakistani Chaunsa, but in India, most would refer to the Alphonso.
The most marketed, cool-kid of the mangoes is the Alphonso, named after Afonso de Albuquerque, a viceroy of Portuguese India, responsible for colonial expansion across the Indian Ocean. It was during Portuguese rule that Goans were taught grafting, which allowed for a diversity in mango varieties, particularly in the state where hundreds of mango trees have borne fruit since the 16th century, overshadowing the colonial hangover of the Alphonso.
Its place in culture is widespread; it was essential for trade and diplomatic relations. In 1937, India sent mangoes as gifts for the coronation of George VI, after the Alphonso was selected as the fruit to cross international waters. Jawaharlal Nehru, fond of the Allahabadi Guava but attuned to mango’s political role, would gift mangoes to political leaders. He would also offer lessons in mango-eating to foreign dignitaries curious about the fruit. The West was so taken with its flavour and juiciness, that the mango was responsible for a trade deal between the US and India in 2007 — Indian mangoes in exchange for Hardley Davidson bikes.
At the heart of these relations was the Alphonso. In his research paper titled, ‘Mango through Millennia,’ published in The Journal of Asian Agri-History 2001, agricultural scientist Dr YL Nene called traditional/indigenous mango varieties in India the 'sucking type' — more popular across the country for their soft pulp and squeezability. The Alphonso came to be because of the need for harder mangoes that would not perish during exports.
The Mango as a Wily Political Tool
Kejriwal's mango frenzy isn’t the first time a country has been transfixed over the fruit or its distribution.
In 1968, Pakistan's foreign minister Mian Arshad Hussain presented cases of Sindhri mangoes to Chairman Mao Zedong. China was witnessing an intense cultural revolution through Mao, who despite shunning the idea of a God, was a Messiah-like figure for the working class. Mao sent the mangoes to workers stationed at Tsinghua University — a sign of esteem immediately seen as self-sacrifice for the nourishment of the peasants. The Pakistani mango was memorialised, instead of eaten, to mark solidarity and Mao’s cultural status. For over a year, the mango came to signify his affection, and it was everywhere, preserved but just not eaten.
Karl Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses, and while true, I think he would add mango to the list. In the medieval period, the notorious Alauddin Khilji of the Khilji dynasty organised a mango extravaganza in Sivama Fort serving mangoes in different dishes/forms. On the night of the feast, Khilji, high on mangoes spent an amorous night with his wife; the next morning, he announced mango to be like his Viagra. He is credited with the popular belief that mango is an aphrodisiac.
In the Mughal empire, the mango was an obsession. A consistent legacy, and maybe the only one, across generations. Jahangir and Shah Jehan, a little more adventurous. awarded the khansama for their favourite creations — the aam panna, aam ka lauz and aam ka meetha pulao.
India’s Pickled Mango
Though used extensively in food, especially sweet dishes, the most interesting local creation, by far, is the pickled mango.
Mango is one of the most popular fruits for pickling. Because they don’t last long in the heat of summer, they need to be pickled before they soften. My initiation into the raw mango world came with replicating my late grandmother's Goan mango pickle during the pandemic. Pickling is perhaps the most artful, albeit slowly dying, way of preserving mangoes. Mango pickle was also coincidentally the most searched recipe on Google India in 2023. Depending on where you find it, the mango pickle is prepared and preserved with ingredients beloved to a region. In Andhra Pradesh, they use spicy chillies; in Gujarat, sugar; in Uttar Pradesh, saunf; in Bengal, mustard oil and jaggery; in Hyderabad, water, with added limestone.
The pickled mango found its way outside its borders, too, in Israel in the form of Amba (a resonance of the common Indian achar), a mango-pickled condiment brought from India by Baghdadi Jews. Common now in Iraqi cuisine, it is curiously added to shawarmas, falafels and fish (a slight difference from India where the pickle is an accompaniment more than an ingredient added into a dish).
The Future of the Mango Hangs in the Balance with Climate Change
India is experiencing a heatwave, along with unseasonal, cyclonic rains. This has an unforgiving impact on agriculture, and farmers are reeling from crop failure. Extreme climate events like the one we are deliriously living through have reduced the overall production of fruits; mangoes, unfortunately, are on that list. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare says the total production of fruits in the country grew by only 17% in the last eight years. While the mango is not as affected as the others, they are feeling the heat.
While Goa holds a strong mango history, and its fruits are famed for possibly being the country’s best, North India has the largest production of mangoes. In 2023, all was not well. Similar to the 'hint' of a climate crisis burdening 2024, 2023 too, was rife with extreme climate events across the globe. In India, hailstorms, pests and heat contributed to a reduction in mango productivity, or worse, mango quality. Many mango farmers, especially in North India, described a significant dip in sales and production. Export figures too allegedly dropped by half.
North India holds some of the most aggressive opinions on mangoes, given its vast production, with varieties of the fruit claiming ties to the 200-year-old Dashehari tree in Malihabad, Lucknow. From Varanasi comes the Langra and of course, Ghalib's favourite, Chaunsa. Gujarat, in the West, supplies the aromatic Kesar, another crowd favourite for its unique pulp. Native to Junagadh, this year its production will drop by at least 50%. The flowering months of winter garnered little fruit since temperatures were warmer than usual. Rising climate issues have weakened Kesar's production in recent years.
The mango, despite its everywhere-ness, cannot withstand extreme weather. Its cultivation requires strategy, resources and focus. Like last year, unseasonal rain marked itself through black spots on the fruit. Despite advice from scientists — such as bagging mango crops to protect them from pests — and some success following them, the mango cannot beat an unending climate catastrophe. The labour it takes to maintain their vast distribution is considerable. Not to forget that India is, still, the top producer of mangoes, making for 50% of all global supply.
“This is a great burden, to be responsible for a fruit that has forged relations between countries, conjoined cultures and nourished a nation’s people for centuries. ”
Today the mango bears the weight of trade, relations and labour. The Mankurad arrived in Goa a month early, selling at a whopping Rs 5,000 per dozen, not deterring loyal Goans and tourists who, by way of socialising the Indian mango in their circles abroad, contribute greatly to this celebrity. But fear looms over vendors who are slaves to the weather and are forced to sell a poor stock, for the same price, if not more.
While many will claim them to be connoisseurs worthy of telling a bad mango from a mile away, or by its aroma and flavour notes, there is also a child-like excitement associated with it at the onset of summer. Often that is enough to purchase the mango in front of you. Like wine, there are judges and there are drinkers.
Saachi D’Souza is a writer and editor based in Goa, examining pop culture and society and all the things that make them.
Illustrations credit: Ritika Panattu
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