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Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick

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If the West has the apple, the East can pride itself for giving the world the king of fruits: the mighty mango. Called aam in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi, this tropical fruit traces its origins to South Asia and has been serenaded by poets and writers since time immemorial. Urdu and Hindi literature are filled with references to this majestic fruit that once adorned the kitchens and gardens of emperors.

It is mango mania during the summer months in South Asia. There are mango festivals where hundreds of varieties of mangoes are displayed. Come summer, city streets in India are lined with vendors selling all varieties of mangoes. Young and old bargain for better prices; mangoes are sent as gifts, all dressed with colourful tissue paper in baskets; restaurants have special mango menu items; and the fruit becomes a gesture of goodwill between India and Pakistan, with the choicest varieties sent across the Wagah border to celebrate each country’s Independence days in August.

Mango season is awaited with bated breath by South Asians all over the world. South Asian stores in the diaspora receive shipments of the fruit, though they are limited in quality and quantity. Each year, I savour my mangoes, though I lament that popular varieties such as dasheri, langra, chaunsa or kesar aren’t easily available in Vancouver.

This year, after some 16 months of the pandemic, in a semi-lockdown state, with flights from India cancelled and the inability of loved ones to visit, made me miss things I associate only with my home country more than ever.

Mango memories take me back to the city I was born in: Rourkela in the eastern part of India. Rich in mineral resources, it is a town with rolling hills and pastures and homes with gardens and yards with mango trees.

Instead of baking, we passed the pandemic by making moonshine

The wild life I find in my own back yard

In late March, just as the days would start to become hot, I remember mango trees blooming: pale light yellow flowers, bunches upon bunches on the trees with their light fresh fragrance in the breeze as we biked to school.

Come April, the trees would start bearing fruit. Exams would be over and we would be well into the long summer holidays. Days were hot and an afternoon rest was common.

But when hot winds called the loo blew outside it was time to go exploring, looking for raw green mangoes called ambiyaan, which would fall off the trees. The thrill of sneaking out to collect raw mangoes, climbing onto the roof of our quarters and eating them with pink salt and powdered red chilies alongside my best friend is etched firmly in my memory.

My grandmother made aam pana, a cool drink made from boiling the flesh of raw mangoes and seasoned with sugar, black salt and roasted cumin powder. She’d have it ready for us as we came in, hot and hungry in almost 45 C. In retrospect, I think it wasn’t just the refreshing drink, it was the love, care and patience with which my grandmother made it and watched with kind eyes as we gulped it down that made the drink extra flavourful.

As children, we also loved aam papad, a treat made from both sour and sweet mango juice, that looks like a fruit leather Roll-Up but is more rudimentary. One bite of the sour aam papad and your eyes instantly crinkle up with the sharp taste, your mouth rendered useless for any other taste for the next hour or so.

Eating the ripe fruit itself was a ritual. My father chose the plump, ready ones, and handed them over. If it was a variety that should be eaten whole, it was softened by rotating it in your palm, the top deftly bitten off and the first bit of juice discarded. The mangoes were then eaten whole, the juice sucked in bit by bit. It was messy, with sticky juice dripping down our chins. The greatest spectacle was when it came to eating the flesh off the pit, or the guthli. My brother and I often examined our pits for who ate them best in a silent, unannounced competition of sorts.

When I moved to New Delhi to live with my maternal grandparents, the mango buying ritual was done by my grandfather who was considered to be a connoisseur. He would smell them, feel them, look at them from various angles and then choose the best mangoes. These were then soaked in water for a few hours before being consumed.

Mango stories from my childhood are endless, and these mango rituals come alive in almost all households in India. But this summer, living in Vancouver, tired and fatigued from the pandemic, I can’t help but remember my sweet mango memories. But is it really just about the fruit? I dig a little deeper and realize that I need to nourish my pandemic-burdened soul, I need to wander the streets of my home country, to listen to the endless chit-chat of the vendors selling their wares, to feel the intense heat of the summer months and soak in the country of my birth.

Instead, I am in a semi-lockdown state savouring mangoes, enjoying those I can find in Canada but missing the varieties I eat in India. This year the mighty mango for me has become a symbol of the sense of loss that each one of us is feeling.

Shruti Prakash Joshi lives in Delta, B.C.

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