Mango Monogamy

The other day, I found a few mangoes in the fridge which my wife had bought. . "Why don't you eat them instead of letting them rot?" she suggested. I looked at them closely and retreated as if I had received a jolt.

"Dussehri! I gasped . "You know I don't even touch them!".

The DW gave me the strange look that she always gives me when I am repulsed by that mango variety from Mayawati land. Shrugged her shoulders and went off.

My dislike of Dussehri has nothing to do with Mayawati. It is just that when it comes to mangoes, I thought I was bigamous. I used to consort with only what I thought were two varieties of mango--Banganapalli from Andhra Pradesh and Safeda. I thought the two mangoes beloved by me which look startlingly similar and taste alike were two different varieties but now I have realized t they are the same.

This enlightenment occurred when I was reading an article in the Times of India on mangoes. The writer informed me that because of failure of safeda crop in Vijayawada, the prices are higher this year. But hey, that is Banganapalli territory. Could the two mangoes be the same? I checked in the internet and voila, Safed is an alias of Banganapalli. I am mango monogamous. I am not in love with two varieties but with one!

This reminded me of an old Sharmila Tagore movie which I saw when I was a kid in which she ostensibly plays a double role of a rich girl and a poor girl. The hero, (played by Rajendra Kumar by looking at whose face you'd learn what is constipation) is torn between the two and finally discovers that they are the same. You see the girl was testing him whether he loved her or was after her wealth.

Now why would the very Andhra Banganapalli need an alias called Safeda in the north? Elementary my dear fellow Ilites . Imagine a north Indian trying th pronounce a word like Banganapalli. He/she would probably twist their tongue doing that and unconsciously rechristen the fruit into something like Baingan ki pilli or something like that.

So to retain its dignity, the luscious fruit has to morph into Safeda. It is like Telugu movies being dubbed in Hindi. Otherwise, northerners won't get a single word of all those brave dialogues Chirajivi or Nagarjuna hurl at dark swarthy villains before letting their fists do the dialogue-baazi...

. But Banganapalli or Safeda , let me have these mangoes about me that are fat, fleshy and luscious. Like Shakespeare's Cassius, Dussehri has a lean and hungry look. Keep me away from it.

Banganapalli, is not just a A Mango. It is THE mango.. The rest are poor shadows.. At the risk of bloggers from Maharashtra, Goa and the entire Konkan region hurling their slippers at me, I would say that the fabled Alphonso is just hype. The hype makes it overpriced in a way that is hardly justified by its taste.

The mango that follows dussehri towards the close of the mango season in the north Langda, is really a crippled fruit as the name indicates.--it is just too fibrous and has an unpleasant acidic taste that often leaves your tongue numb. Chausa. that comes at the end of the season, has a cloying syrupy taste..

.So Banganapalli remains the empress of mangoes (not emperor, I wouldn't be caught falling in love with a male). The rest of the incarnations of the King of Fruits are just a bunch of pathetic serfs. . .

 

Kamalji, not a double role but two-in-one role like SharmilaTagore movie Talaash. You don't miss anything by not eating alphonsos aka apoos. They are overrated.Apoos are strictly for the Maratha manoos who follows Shiv Sena or Raj Thackarey's outfit. The ones we get in Delhi are godawful. I like Mangoes whose skins are also edibleBanganapalli passes this test. The rest of the mangoes are thick skinned. Thick=skinned humans are okay at times but not thick skinned mangoes.