Long Live The King

An entire years wait is finally over with the king of fruit formally announcing the onset of summer and making its annual entry in the sunny state! Fernando takes us through a nostalgic journey on the legendary mangoes of Goa…

- Fernando

IT’S that time of year when there’s a sudden vividness about the trees around us; when memories from under the surface come to the brim, making the heart sing. You can journey through the state (nay, country) at this time of year, and you will find that across the mango-growing spaces, there is a kind of magic waiting to be woven into words. For children in India, there is often this longlost memory of a precarious attempt to pick a particular mango, dangling enticingly just out of reach, on the branch of a tree that most likely belonged to someone else. This memory is often followed by one of the aunty or uncle to whom the tree actually belonged to chasing the would-be thief and his/her ‘crew’ away. If across ages then, a piece of produce can bring memories bubbling to the fore, accompanied by the wafting scent of ripening mangoes within the premises; and if it can stir feelings both past and present, it perhaps stands to reason that the mango rightfully bears the title of the king of fruits.

This year has been one where the mango seems to find itself in the news all the time. From tragic tales of how Karnataka’s local mango variety called Ishad, the pulp of which has been extracted for over a century for making value-added products, is facing the threat of becoming rare in its homeland, to happier tales; such as that of Andhra Pradesh’s 25 year old Kuppala Rama Gopalakrishna, who has managed to graft 24 varieties of mangoes on a single tree in his orchard, including one which will grow throughout the year.