As the season ends, a literary delight

Sopan Joshi’s Mangifera Indica: A Biography of the Mango is a book to relish that immerses readers into the multifaceted world of India’s beloved fruit. The author, known for his journalistic acumen, meticulously unpacks the many layers of the king of fruits, offering a veritable basket brimming with memories, anecdotes, traditions, science, history, and geography related to the mango.

The book is divided into three parts, comprising 18 chapters, accompanied by a beautifully written prologue and extensive reference notes.

The first part begins with the history and origins of the mango, and explores its relevance in modern culture, including its role in religious rituals, festivals, literature, and diplomacy. The second part of the book takes us back 4,500 million years to trace the coevolution of mangoes and humans. In the third part, we journey across India, discovering a kaleidoscope of mango varieties.

Along the way, we uncover unheard stories of growers, traders, distributors, and consumers, adding depth to our understanding of this fruit, the charms of which not many can resist.

The author writes: “There’s evidence that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation were consuming mango. We know this from objects dug up from a site dated between 2600 and 2200 BCE in Farmana, Haryana, about 70 kilometres away from Northwest Delhi.” The book provides historical facts with engaging storytelling, and enriches our knowledge with a comprehensive chronicling of how the mango became a global phenomenon. The author goes on to delve into the influence of the Mughal dynasty and Portuguese horticultural techniques on mango orchards, shedding light on how these influences have shaped the cultivation and appreciation of mangoes in India.

One of the book’s interesting anecdotes is Joshi’s exploration of the famous Desai Bandhu Ambewale from Pune, who have sent the best hand-plucked mangoes from their Ratnagiri orchards to prominent figures such as former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Hindustani classical music maestro Bhimsen Joshi, film star Amitabh Bachchan, and cricketer M S Dhoni.

The book reveals lesser-known traditions like the ancient travelling mango kitchens of coastal Andhra Pradesh and the Maharashtrian custom where brides return to their maternal homes during the mango season (Mahervashin).

These cultural insights highlight the mango’s importance in Indian festivals, religious rituals, literature, and social customs. Further, the author illustrates how the fruit became a symbol of diplomacy and cultural exchange right from the time of Nehru. 

He explains how, after Independence, mango orchards were established to circumvent land ceiling laws intended for land redistribution post-zamindari abolition. These laws allowed higher ceilings for horticultural land than for irrigated cultivable land, leading many landowners to convert irrigated lands into mango orchards.

This practice has resulted in many absentee landlords who sell the mango crop in advance to contractors, often leading to suboptimal cultivation practices. Joshi’s critique sheds light on the challenges India’s mango sector is facing and the potential threat to the quality of this culturally significant fruit.

The highlight of this eminently readable ‘biography’ is the way the author goes beyond the familiar stories of mango-loving nawabs to give the reader a nuanced insight into not only how the ‘mango system’ operates but also how each variety has its own story rooted in local soil and legend. 

This is a celebration of the mango indeed but also a critique of modern practices that threaten its legacy and is a must read for anyone who has ever been charmed by the sweet aroma and unforgettable taste of Indian mangoes, a fruit that is so deeply associated with the sub-continent’s history and civilisation.