My mango is better than yours

Last weekend, my phone buzzed incessantly with social media alerts. The fantastically entertaining 34th Colloquy pays tribute to what Orta explains, “The more that is said about the taste of this fruit, the more is asserted.” Photo: iStock The academic and author Jonathan Gil Harris points out in TheFirst Firangis: Remarkable Stories Of Heroes, Healers, Charlatans, Courtesans & Other Foreigners Who Became Indian: “I believe that the hints of becoming Indian in Orta’s professional life are related to a key detail informed all his key decisions—to migrate to Goa, to find service in Ahmednagar, to embrace Muslim traditions of knowledge. In 1817, Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh rhapsodized, “to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of course, impossible.” Maria Graham’s 1813 Journal Of A Residence In India adds, “The tree from which all these species have been grafted is honoured during the fruit season by a guard of sepoys; and in the reign of Shah Jehan, courtiers were stationed between Delhi and the Mahratta coast, to secure an abundant and fresh supply for the royal table.” JOURNEY OF THE MODERN MANGO The 250-year story between Orta’s bountiful tree and the state-secured Mazagaon fruit, coveted by the viceroy and Great Mughal alike, is the journey of the modern mango. Alas, the days of youth have come to an end, indeed, the days of life itself have come to an end.” His masnavi, titled Dar Sifat-e-Ambaah, begins with the couplet mujhse poochho, tumheñ khabar kya hai/aam ke aage neyshakar kya hai, which the scholar and poet Mustansir Dalvi translated for me as, “If you were to ask me, what do I know—sugar cane barely compares with ambrosial mango.” When I asked the mangophilic author Chandrahas Choudhury, who often travels for the specific purpose of guzzling mangoes, which part of the country stands out in its devotion to our favourite fruit, he told me “for sheer volume of cultivation, breadth of commercial varieties, forms of mango hospitality, and ubiquity of mangoes in the language, proverbs and metaphors of the common man, nothing beats UP”. Part of the settlement was Garcia da Orta’s crucial “parent tree” of twice-fruiting Mazagaon mangoes.