Mangoes, Mangoes Everywhere!

"Why a MANGO is King of Fruit!"

"A blogpost on Mangoes in General, recounting my experience collecting mangoes from trees in our ancestral farm"

Come summer, and one visitor is eagerly awaited in everybody's homes. A fleshly, luscious, ripe, yellow, drop-shaped, round visitor. YES, its edible. I think you must be thinking of eating one now. Why, you may have it right in front of you, cut up, all yellow, just ready to pop into that mouth! A Mango is on everyone's dinner plate!

Low in Calories, rich in Vitamins A, B, C and minerals Potassium, Iron, Phosphorous, Calcium and Magnesium, this treat has been around for the past 6,000 years. Its native to India (and if its not grown around you, you have the right to question our madness!), and grows mainly in the tropics. India is also the world's largest producer and exporter of this delicacy. Dont fret, Mangoes have been proven to be helpful in weight loss, so no fuss there!

There is no other fruit as versatile as the Mango. It can be eaten raw, unripe, ripe, can be pickled, be made into chutneys, smoothies, ice-creams, aamras and even the leaf of the tree is used as a cultural symbol.

Plucking some mangoes from a neighbor's tree is a very common practice here. It usually results in the owner running behind the hoodlums and the hoodlums running away, taunting the owner as they run along to their safe haven. Another practice involves throwing down a mango using a sling and a perfectly aimed projectile. Such activities today are a rarity in the city. Since then Mango cultivation has become specialised, with the tasy cultivars (varities) like Alphonso, Rampuri, Pairi and Mankur being confined to 10 acre farms somewhere in the remote corners of the village.

Plucking those mangoes out directly from the trees requires you owning either a mango tree, or a farm. Every year, around the third week of May, our family (some 15-30 of them) chalk out a program which starts with all of us going to out ancestral farm in a little known village called Shirgao, some 100 km from Kolhapur, Maharashtra; then gathering some local help (those trees are more than 50 feet you know, climbing them needs some local knowledge); collecting and dividing the stuff; then heading back home, sure that the rest of the summer won't be 'Mangoless.'

It was my first time to Shirgao this May 26. Like any other Indian village, it was a scenic place. Lush sugarcane fields spanning the breadth of the village, all clustered with huts and small canals for irrigation. In between two sugarcane fields in the north of the village, is a mango tree (Magnifera Indica) farm consisting of about 15 trees. As excited and curious as ever, I wasted much of my time climbing the tree picking mangoes though I only could reach the 2nd branch!). After procuring some fruit catchers, I spent the rest of my time picking mangoes from my ground base, catching the mangoes the locals dropped, and also managed to click some snaps, along with a trip to an adjacent corn farm to get that moolah!

Then around lunchtime, rain clouds made their majestic entry from the horizon. From then on, the people jumped into overdrive to safely deposit whatever that had been collected into the cars. Then it started raining. Lightning followed. Getting wet was FUN, and inevitable. After 8hours, MORE THAN 500 DOZEN (6000) MANGOES and 2 trees still left to strip, we had to leave.

And for the following two days until the car was washed, the smell of unripe mangoes RULED. Now the wait is restricted for another week, until Green turns to Magical Yellow!

Till then, there will be, Mangoes, Mangoes, Everywhere and the smell of Mangoes in the Air!