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ShareI am your typical middle-class housewife! As typical as the one who oogles at ripe mangoes in a fruit shop, asks the price, bargains a bit, throws a fit and goes home with a dozen bananas instead! Yeah, I belong to the aam janta which can't afford an aam...
My husband says he will sell his scooter. That's the only solution. Otherwise how can we afford mangoes in his aamdani?
Shakespeare was right. What's in a name? A mango by any other name -- call it aamba or maanga -- will be just as mehenga! After all, it's just a kidney-shaped fruit belonging to the cashew family!
Actually, I'm reading a lot about mangoes these days. And why not? If you can't eat them, read about them! Now I know that mangoes originally grew wild in south-east Asia for several million years, until one rotten mango fell on the head of a lucky caveman who arguably discovered the laws of gravity long before Newton could even spell it. But the guy couldn't find any correspondent from a TV news channel to break the story! Then mango was brought to America by the settlers and immediately tried in some kidney transplant operations -- with disastrous results, of course.
I am really glad that there are 500 varieties of mango! That makes me feel good. I feel even better that it's grown in 83 countries and India is the largest among them. Well, I feel good about all that until I start wondering why I still don't get even one mango to eat! Not even one with black spots on it.
It's the national fruit of Philippines! Does that mean they salute and sing their national anthem ever time they come across a mango? And what about us? Well, we do it differently. When we come across a mango, we fold our hands, kneel down on the ground and pay our respects. And then we walk away, fantasising about aamras and mango shrikhand -- and if we have some loose change, then we would buy a Mango Bite.
Finally, mango is good for your health. Yeah, it's rich in Beta-carotene, which the body converts into Vitamin A -- which is so good for your eyesight that a dozen mangoes can actually give you X-Ray vision. On the flipside, which no fruit merchant will admit, a medium-sized mango means gaining 152 calories.
I guess that's a good excuse to not buy mangoes this season!
