The Mango Dilemma

Come summers and my mango dilemma begins!

I have fond memories of many a summer afternoon in my childhood, gorging on deliciously sweet and luscious mangoes together with my siblings and sometimes even my cousins, in the City of Mangoes, Salem. We would sit on the floor with lots of old newspapers spread out before us and literally lick the mango juice as it fell onto our hands while digging into sinfully sweet and thick flesh! More often than naught, for days on end, this would be our lunch too!

I remember Ma once remarking that we should enjoy the mangoes in summer and eat to our heart’s content because once the monsoons set in, mangoes would disappear completely from our dining table. She said that mangoes consumed during and after the rains were a sure shot to diarrhea, ameobiasis and dysentery. And so the mangoes remained all through the hot summers and disappeared completely on the advent of the monsoon, to return again the following summer.

So, what’s the dilemma then?

It’s now, now that I’m married and have been married for almost 35 years and have lived in North India all these years. Mangoes begin to appear here from March itself but they don’t excite me at all. One look and I turn away in disgust – they’re yellow on the outside alright but synthetically ripened and oh-so-tasteless and sour! So, I just don’t buy them. By May, the markets are flooded –green on the outside and pale yellow inside – again I move away from these nameless, not-so-tempting, so-called-mangoes!

 But then, hubby dear seems quite interested!! He buys a few (just to try them out, he says) but I refuse to touch them. Our conversation goes something like this –

Me:                 You call these mangoes?

He:                  Arre, you don’t know anything about mangoes….wait till the dusheris and langdas come……have you ever tasted anything like them?....what about, chausa…?  And….and…..the fozli of Malda? (the loyal Bengali, after all)…nothing in comparison…..

Me (bristling up like a porcupine):

Ah..ha..ha…dusheri, langda, fozli!! My foot! You’re telling ME about mangoes! ME, who was brought up in the City of Mangoes – Salem…having grown up on Gundu, Malcova, Salem-Benglura….you’ve never seen the likes of them, ever! What do YOU know? 

He:                  Umphh!  Gundu, indeed!

And, so on……while I sulk like a gundu myself!

The rains bring down the temperature in the city (and at home also) and the gleam in my husband’s eyes are quite visible as the streets get flooded with water and fruit vendors are found every 10 metres with their carts overloaded with his favourite dusheri, langda and chausa!

There’s a tussle every day as he goes to the market to buy fresh fruits. I always tell him NOT to buy mangoes but he invariably returns with a kilo or so. My argument is that I don’t eat mangoes once the monsoon sets in and he says that his favourites appear only during and after the monsoons! So, the mangoes shall and will come to our dining table!

Being a Salem mango loyalist, I won’t ever switch sides although I hardly ever get to eating my favourites here in Delhi, and the ‘not-to- eat-mangoes-during-the-monsoons’ is still a predominant factor.

But, sometimes, just to prove I’m still humane, I do take a bite off the langda or chausa, albeit with a don’t-care attitude while weeping inside for those gundu mambalams!

…..and surprisingly, my tummy is still OK!!