Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango
By Sopan Joshi
Aleph Book Company, 432 pages, Rs 799

The mango, the king of fruits, is also the fruit of desire and the fruit of love. Every aspect of the tree is profoundly intertwined with Indian civilization. The leaves, flowers, and fruits of the mango are depicted in paintings and sculptures, and references to it are found in Indian literature through the ages and in several languages. It has played, and continues to play, an important role in religion, cuisine, and a variety of cultural forms. But do we really know all there is to know about this delectable fruit?

Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango is a deeply researched and well written book, that goes beyond the well-trodden stories of the obsessions of nawabs and kings and breathless annual debates about the best mangoes in the world. From the orchards where they grow to the vibrant markets redolent with their aroma, and ultimately to our tables, Mangifera indica describes every aspect of India’s favorite fruit.

Sopan Joshi, a seasoned journalist and researcher, stresses as much of “Mangifera” as “Indica” – the book opens new directions of understanding India – its land, people, culture, history and more – while exploring all facets of this fruit.

The book inspired a few questions, to which Joshi replied in spite of his busy schedule. Here is the interview:

Why the mango? John McPhee wrote a book on oranges. And what you do with the theme – bringing in science and culture plus tales – could have been accomplished with, says, the potato. Or the samosa.

John McPhee’s Oranges appeared as an article in 1966 and as a book the next year. Since the 1990s, authors like Mark Kurlansky have created a niche for hyper-detailed books on a single item, like the cod fish or salt or the oyster or the onion. John Reader and Andrew F. Smith, among others, have crafted excellent books on the potato. Reaktion Books has ‘The Edible Series’, with almost one hundred titles on singular items, the latest among which in August 2024 is Mango: A Global History. There are books on the samosa, too.

But the mango in South Asia is a different thing altogether. Several works since ancient times have had elaborate chapters dedicated to the mango. In a modern framework, the oldest monograph dedicated to the mango that I could find is from 1897: the 123-page A Treatise on Mango by Probodh Chundra De, who was appointed the superintendent of the Nizamat Gardens of Murshidabad in 1892. Since then, there are scores of monographs on just the botany of the mango. I cannot think of any fruit or vegetative item that has commanded a comparable interest anywhere in the world, certainly not in India. And I’m not even talking about the cultural depictions of the mango, which go back thousands of years. There are several good books documenting the mango in Indian life and culture. Even so, there was room for a synthesis book, one that combines multiple frameworks. And even a half-decent book on mango can draw attention; such is the power of the mango in India.

The book, it seems, is as much about the mango as about India, and the many ways of engaging with its diversities. From botany and genetics, economics and markets to epics and puranas, you have left, as it were, no stone unturned in arriving at a deeper understanding of the mango and the world around it. Did you have this “interdisciplinary” approach in mind when you began working on this book, or was it something that emerged later, due to the subject matter?

Yes, I did have multiple frameworks in mind when I began researching this book. But it wasn’t anything like what it became in the end. That’s because there was no way for me to imagine how deep this relationship with the mango tree runs in almost all our cultural traditions. For example, the role of the mango fruit in Mauryan diplomacy; or the role of the mango orchard in the life and teachings of Gautam Buddha; or the centrality of the mango inflorescence in the biggest festival of India, the Madanotsava/Vasantotsava.

Then, when I began to explore the relationship of our species with trees that bear fleshy fruits, the connection ran even deeper. The best of available science indicates that this is not limited to our species. The mammal order of primates that we belong to was shaped by a co-evolutionary partnership with trees that bore fleshy fruits. I was aware of this link when I began my research, but I had no idea that it has shaped several key characteristics that mark out primates—and us—from other mammals. From our ability to see red, to our large brains, our stereoscopic eyes with good depth perception, our ability to metabolise alcohol... we are shaped by our desire for fleshy fruits. In return, this craving has driven the evolution of tropical fruit-bearing trees like the mango.
 
This desire is so deep that we take unusual risks for fleshy fruits and flowers. Consider the industrial decor of five-star hotels; they leave flowers and fruits in the room to make it look attractive and comfortable. All this is part and parcel of our relationship with fruits like the mango. But the plethora of reports and articles that appear each mango season do not even consider all this. They cannot go beyond a handful of commercial mango varieties and over-the-top stories of kings and connoisseurs and their passion for mangoes. I had no idea that the centrality of the mango in our culture is not because of the fruit but because of the flower. Or that the mango grove was a munificent form of infrastructure in all our villages and cities.

You have travelled in the four directions, covering wide swathes of India, to collect information about this book. Would you like to share some anecdotes from those travels that you have not shared in the book?

I had heard of a mango grove set up by transgender people, called ‘hijras’, in the town of Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh. It took me a long time and several enquiries to get any credible leads. Somebody told me that I should go to the old part of the city and ask for the house of their leader. When I finally reached there, accompanied by four friends, they were reluctant to talk to us. I suppose they are not treated with respect by outsiders. Once they figured out that we merely wanted to find out about a mango grove, they pointed out that it wasn’t a grove but a burial ground, because they were not allowed to cremate their dead in Hindu crematoria or Muslim graveyards. Once the initial hesitation disappeared, they prepared a lovely meal for us and fed us and treated us with traditional desi generosity. It was a memorable experience.

Likewise, meeting the scientist R.C. Mehrotra at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in Lucknow was a revelation. He has found the oldest mango fossils in the world. What surprised me was his openness to an outsider. He didn’t just help me understand some key elements of the mango’s evolutionary journey; he gave me a much deeper insight into the biogeography of the Indian subcontinent, particularly, and evolution across the world, in general. I learned that no matter how much you read and research, nothing can take the place of a seasoned scientist who has invested a lifetime into their discipline. We often complain about the sad state of science in India. But we don’t do enough to value and celebrate the best of our scientists.

You have also written on Mahatma Gandhi and Kumar Gandharva for younger readers in Hindi and English. There is also Jal Thal Mal, a book on the inter-linkages of our environment, which is in Hindi and has been much talked about in some circles. Any plans for its English translation? What is your next project in English?

It’s been nearly ten years since I finished working on Jal Thal Mal. A few of its readers have offered to fund its English translation. I’m waiting because I do not wish to do a mere translation. I wish to take a few months to update the research material and bring in more reporting on the subject. Besides, writing about such complicated and difficult subject requires much greater effort in the writing. In more than a few ways, text in English works differently for the readers than it does in Hindi. A translation will not work. It needs a fresh effort of writing in English, as well as refreshing the research and reporting.

My next project is a book on climate change in Hindi, which I will also bring out in English. This is a result of the kind of questions I get asked about understanding and dealing with climate change, especially by young people. It is perhaps the most difficult subject to understand in our times. I realised that over the years, I’ve understood it from multiple perspectives that can help ordinary people wrap their heads around this behemoth of a matter.

You obviously have a wide range of interests, but for the kind of reader that has liked ‘Mangifera indica’, what would be your recommended reading list?

The first book has to be P. Thankappan Nair’s The Mango in Indian Life and Culture (1995). It is an outstanding work of scholarship over 15 years by a man who worked with meagre resources but had the kind of diligence that is fast going out of fashion. He scoured all manner of sources to gather references to the mango in all kinds of texts.

The second book is Kusum Budhwar’s Romance of the Mango (2002). This specifically looks at the mango from the prism of India’s traditions of arts and culture. Like Nair’s book, it is more a compilation than a work of narration. But it is very attractive in its production values, too.

On the botany side, the books of two scientists deserve special mention. Lal Behari Singh and Ram Nath Singh wrote a few monographs on the mango and each one is worthwhile.

Two compilations are very useful to get an all-round botanical view of the mango. Edited by Richard E. Litz, The Mango: Botany, Production and Uses (2009, second edition) is comprehensive and captures the gamut of peer-reviewed science on the fruit. The Mango Genome (2021), edited by Chittaranjan Kole, is a valuable update on the state of the art on the mango.

Of course, M.S. Randhawa’s monumental four-volume A History of Agriculture in India is a must to understand any element of India’s agriculture.

For a good evolutionary biology take on plants, Jonathan Silvertown’s An Orchard Invisible: A Natural History of Seeds (2009) is a delightfully written and beautifully produced book full of insight and startling facts.