Column

Last week, my wife came home fuming from the market. “You know who I am?” she asked. Even as I fumbled for an answer, she said: “I’m your typical middle-class housewife who ogles at mangoes in a fruit shop, asks the price, bargains a bit, throws a fit and returns home with a dozen bananas instead! I belong to the aam janta who can’t afford an aam!”

I offered to take a loan since we couldn’t afford an outright purchase of mangoes in my aamdani. I guess Shakespeare was right. What’s in a name? A mango by any other name — call it aamba or maanga — will be just as mehenga.And it still remains a kidney-shaped fruit belonging to the cashew family!

In fact, I’ve been whetting my appetite by reading about mangoes. So now I know that mangoes originally grew wild in South-East Asia for several thousand years, until one rotten mango fell on the head of a lucky caveman who arguably discovered the laws of gravity much before Newton could even spell it. But the guy didn’t have the PR skills to get media coverage for his delicious discovery as he’d no access to Breaking News correspondents from television channels. Later mango was brought to America by the settlers and immediately tried in some kidney transplant operations – with disastrous results, of course!

I’m really glad to know that there are 500 varieties of mango grown in 83 countries and India is the largest among them. I feel good about it until I wonder why I still can’t afford even one mango to eat – not even one with black spots on it! While it’s the national fruit of Philippines,I’m not sure what that means. Do they salute and sing their national anthem every time they come across a mango in Manila? Well, we do it differently. When we come across a mango, we fold our hands, kneel down on the ground and pay our respects. Then we walk away, fantasising about aamras and mango shrikhand – and buy a Mango Bite toffee instead.

Mango is rich in Beta-carotene, which our body converts into Vitamin A – which is so good for our eyesight that a dozen mangoes can actually give you an X-Ray vision! On the flipside, which no fruit merchant will admit, a medium-sized mango means gaining 152 calories. And that just might be my only excuse to pacify my wife!