Celebrated mango grower comes out with 'Modi mango'

Celebrated mango grower Haji Kalimullah has come out with a new "Modi mango" variety and wishes that it will reach Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that he can taste this royal fruit named after him. "I had kept the first fruits of the Modi mango variety solely for the Prime Minister but I do not have a medium to send them to him," Kalimullah, a Padma Shri awardee famous for growing scores of mango varieties and naming them after celebrities, he said.

"It is my wish that I can offer him the king of fruits myself and I am confident that he will love it," Kalimullah said, adding that it would be an honour if the Prime Minister finds the taste of the fruit to his liking. It has a good tatste and is also beautiful to look at, he said, adding the fruit skin bears lines of crimson giving it a very rare and appealing hue. "All those who have tasted it, be it officials or the connoisseur of the fruit, have found it very delicious and delectable," Kalimullah who has orchards in the mango belt of Malihabad on the outskirts of the state capital Lucknow said.

The noted mango grower, who has become an institution in his own right having a particular tree bearing fruits of 300 different varieties, said he has prepared five saplings of 'Modi mango' and wants to present them to the Prime Minister for planting in his home state Gujarat. "I want that the vareity grows in Gujarat," he said, adding that it is a cross between Kolkata's Husn-e-Aara and Lucknow's Dussehri.