Hyderabad: The mango season is essentially related to childhood and has a lot of memories. Near Gudimalkapur, a boy lifts Banganapalli’s box and a moment of heat smells like a grandfather’s courtyard. “The mango you like depends on how you grow, I’ve always been Dasheri,” said corporate employee Arijit.
This is where most conversations in Hyderabad begin. The fruit you are loyal to is almost never about flavor. It’s about familiarity. Reddit’s Hyderabad page has been collecting such fragments over the past week. One user described stealing mangoes from a nearby farm with a new classmate, only to be caught and shouted when a friend ran away.
“After that day, I no longer became friends with that guy.” Others recalled the summer in their village, where all the cousins arrived and caught up with the mango. “We used to spend three to four weeks there every year. Mango and cousin were the only thing that mattered.”
Shireen Shaik, who works in a PR company in the city, remembers attracting smaller, soft varieties directly from a bucket of water, which is the best mango memory. “Dad would soak them and we all slammed,” she said. Neha Sharma’s memory was related to the cold Shrikhand. “My sister made the best shrikhand. It didn’t hide the taste of mango. It made it a reality and was pleasant.”
There is also a freedom in the luster of these memories. Anwesha Saha, who grew up in Bangladesh, remembered guarding the mango trees in her grandparents’ yard, as if they were fortresses. “Boys nearby will come and steal. We’re very territorial. My grandparents don’t care and they’re happy to share. But when we see any ripe moments, we’ll stick to guard and pull out the mangoes.”
Of course, mangoes live longer in India’s imagination than most metaphors deserve. It’s full of wedding menus, advertising campaigns like Katrina Kaif’s Slice Aamsutra, mango Frooti with “fresh and juicy” jingles, and Kacha Mango Bite by Amitabh Bachchan. It also finds itself a literary champion, and poetry keeps returning to the same childhood. In fact, so much is that Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie once advised South Asian writers to avoid using tropical fruits in their titles. “No mango, no guavas. None of these are.”
Dozens of books written by South Asian writers have the title of Mango and have endless poetic metaphors with Alfonso. Social media users have responded by spinning Trope Inside Out. The parody tweet now lined up online and said, “I’m in a desi novel: The mango tree swayed like a mom’s palu the day she left.”
However, the beloved Hyderadi humor poet Fareed Sahar believes there is no reason to make mango easy. “Mirza Ghalib likes mangoes, but his friends don’t,” he said. He recalls a popular Mushaira involving Ghalib’s love for mangoes. “One day, Ghalib ate mango near him, threw his skin aside, and a donkey left, sniffed it and walked away.”
“The friend said, ‘Look, even don’t eat mangoes.’ Ghalib replied: “To be precise. “For years, that line has been in the Musharas of our family.” His own memory is far from literature. “As kids, we would go to the farm, climb trees like monkeys, eat everything we could grab, run. That’s what we do every summer.”
The fruit is still so tangled in memory that many people are fired. There is something ridiculous in all respects. Mango reminds us of who we are, even if we laugh at people who pretend to be fiction. Whether it’s ridiculed or extinct in Mushairas, they will continue to stick to our summer and our stories.
