From America to India on a yatra for mango divine

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

ANIL Sharma’s love affair with the mango began around 10 years ago. Walking around a store in Chicago, where he’s been living for 30 years, he spotted Chausa mangoes for sale by sheer chance, he says.

He bought a box, took it home, and ate one. It tasted heavenly. “The mango was sweet as honey,” he recalls. “My eyes closed. My head moved from side to side. I ate every bite with great delight.”

Sharma placed the remaining mangoes tenderly in his fridge. A few weeks later he took out another one. It still tasted divine.

The memory of those mangoes didn’t fade with time. It struck Sharma that he could travel to India on an Aam Yatra and savour as many varieties of mangoes as his heart desired.  An American citizen, Sharma hadn’t visited the land of his birth for 23 years. After he retired in 2019 at the age of 62, the idea of going on an Aam Yatra geeked him.   

The objective of his journey would be to visit orchards growing India’s best mango varieties. He wanted to pluck unripe mangoes, naturally ripen them and taste them.

Sharma didn’t want to go on a five-star guided tour of orchards. He wanted to travel quietly, with no loud announcements on social media, just like an aam aadmi. The tour took him four months from April to July in 2024. 

Sharma landed in Delhi on March 8 last year. Since he was visiting his motherland after a long gap, he was eager to see how the land of his birth had progressed since then.

It hadn’t been very difficult for him to plan his journey. He has a friend, Jaidev, a mango trader in the US, who knows mango suppliers in India. They briefed Sharma on the mango season, and put him in touch with traders and growers. They also kept updating Sharma during his tour.

Since he had decided to travel simply, he opted for non-AC trains during the initial leg of his journey. But once the summer heat set in, long-distance journeys became uncomfortable. For smaller trips, he even boarded unreserved compartments. For accommodation, he used AC railway retiring rooms or nearby hotels.

At every destination, he would visit a mango orchard, the local mango market and a heritage site. He travelled by bus or used an auto or a cab. If a place was within three kilometres, he simply walked.

 

SEASONS AND REGIONS

Sharma’s first stop was in Rajasthan. Sadly, the mango season hadn’t set in yet. But surprisingly, he procured a small greenish red mango with yellow orangish pulp called Sindhura. It was amazingly flavourful. “Wow, this is a wonderful way to start my yatra,” he told himself.

Sharma then went to Ratnagiri and Vengurla in the Western Ghats and from there to Dharwad to taste the famed Alphonso. Two mangoes for which Andhra Pradesh is famous, the Bangapalli and Himayat, lured him to Bakarapeta near Tirupati and a farm near Hyderabad. Salem was his destination for the Malgoa and a few local varieties. He tasted the Gir Kesar in Junagadh.

After that Sharma travelled to Lucknow to savour the Dasheri and Langda.  Unfortunately, the Langda season hadn’t set in. He tasted the Dudhiya Malda, Jardalu and Bombay varieties in Bihar.

Sharma had heard that the best Chausa mangoes came from Multan in Pakistan.  So, he ended his yatra, in the third week of July, by travelling to Multan to taste their Chausa too. 

 

GREEN CHAUSA

How would Sharma rate the mangoes he tasted? Which were his best varieties?

“I would give first place to the Chausa I ate in Delhi. The second would be Sindhura in South India, the third the Himayath I ate at Bakarapeta in Telangana. Fourth is the Pandoori Mamidi, a local mango variety in Andhra. It has a distinct flavour. I found the Kishanbhog I ate at Malda in West Bengal far superior to the much-touted Himsagar.”

“Alphonso, of course, is a great variety,” he added. “Except for Chausa, the other four were new to me and they made me happier.”

Two varieties, he says, deserve special mention. “I visited Mathew Joseph, a retired soldier in Kainedi, Alleppey. He has grown more than 50 mango varieties on his farm which he has painstakingly collected from across India. Two varieties of hybrids, H-87 and H-151, were excellent.” Both have been developed at Kerala’s state farm at Karimbam near Thaliparamb. 

He says he can’t really recall the exact number of mangoes he tasted during his journey. “I was made the taster of selected local mango varieties at the Kannapuram mango fest. I must have eaten at least 25 fruits there. Some months later,  Shyju Machathi, a mango conservationist and a friend, brought me a big basket of mangoes from a mango fest in Bengaluru. Altogether, I must have eaten not less than 100 varieties.”

Sharma says the Kannapuram mango fest was his most memorable moment. “There were about 150 varieties of fruits. I was honoured by being given the responsibility of being a taster. I can never forget their affection and hospitality,” he says.

At the Kannapuram festival where there were 150 varieties of mangoes

A common complaint is that mangoes that arrive in the market early aren’t tasty because they have been harvested too early. “I too had similar experiences. Like, I bought Lakhanbhog which looked nice but the taste was flat. I bought Malgoa from a big mall in Tirunelveli but that too tasted flat. In fact, the raw mango of the same variety presented by friends in Palakkad tasted far better when ripened,” he says.

 

NOT IN A HURRY

Throughout the tour, Sharma used public transport. “My main objective was to interact with co-passengers. I wasn’t in a hurry.” Yet, due to the language barrier, he was disappointed that he couldn’t converse with people at many places.

“A senior NRI coming all the way in the midst of summer won their hearts and opened a lot of doors for me. Even though I was a total stranger, many people went out of their way to help me,” he recalls. At Bakarapeta, he stayed in the home of Subedar Naidu. “Words aren’t enough to thank them for their hospitality,” he says.

Sharma always kept one or two mangoes in his bag throughout the yatra. “There were instances when I didn’t have time to search for safe food or no time to eat at all. On such occasions, a mango served me as a meal or breakfast. I always carried a knife, a plate and napkin to enable me to eat it anywhere while travelling. It was safe and nutritious food and provided me the required energy.”

He never ate unripe mangoes. “Apart from my passport and mobile, the mangoes I carried were my most precious belongings. Sometimes I travelled very long in the summer heat to collect a few mangoes. Eating them before ripening, I felt, was a crime.”

 

US SUPPLY CHAINS

Sharma also pointed out the difference in production, supply and marketing of produce in the US and India. “It is a big commercial business in the US, very sophisticated and streamlined. Mangoes are sourced globally and available year-round. In winter, they are sourced from South America. In summer, supply comes from Mexico and Asian countries. However, the taste of those mangoes is no way near Indian mangoes.”

In the US only about eight to nine varieties of mangoes are available. Another three to four varieties come from India and Pakistan in minuscule quantities. American consumers generally buy mangoes for the week, expecting them to ripen over time.

Sharma is puzzled as to why Indian mangoes are not promoted abroad. “Why aren’t excellent varieties like Chausa and Sindhura marketed like the Alphonso? Is it because it arrives first or its production volume is more? Look at the Pakistanis. They put in a lot of effort and so they are able to export their Chausa mangoes very well.”

 “Life is very short,” Sharma says. “Find a reason to travel with spontaneity and a sense of adventure. You will be rewarded beyond expectations. explore India. It has world-class architectural history. Keep that in mind when you plan an overseas vacation.”