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FEBRUARY 2002 Contents

 Lifestyle

 Ageing - breaking mind barriers!

 'My Secret of Longevity' 
 BC Sanyal
 HD Shourie
 Khushwant Singh
 Raunaq Singh
 MS Oberoi

 Ageing & Performing Artists

 Literature

 New Age Women Writers

 Performing Arts

 The Kuchipudi Reddy Family

 
 
Society

 South Asians in News 2001 
 
 International Recognition and
 National Awards

 
Magsaysay Awards

 
Newsmakers & breakers in
 Cricket

 
Golf, Tennis, Hockey, Squash

 Leadership

 Know Your Leaders
 Arun Jaitley
 Amar Singh
 Abhishek Singhvi
 Omar Abdullah
 Sitaram Yechuri

 

 Feature

 Mango - the King of Fruits

 People

 Abdul Sattar Edhi

 Sports

 Sunita Sharma - India's First  
 Lady Guru of Cricket

 Books

 'Knock at Every Alien Door'
 - Serialization of an
 unpublished novel by
 Joseph Harris - Chapter 2

 Films

 Vasundhara Das - the bride of
 'Monsoon Wedding' 

 Fashion & Jewellery

 Poonam Soni- new look to gold

 

 Editor's Note

 

 

 
the craft shop

the print gallery

Books

Silk Road on Wheels

The Road to Freedom

Enduring Spirit

Parsis-Zoroastrians of
India

The Moonlight Garden

Contemporary Art in Bangladesh

 

 

 

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Page  3  of  5

 

The South Asian MANGO

 - The Fruit of Kings & the King of Fruits

(cntd.)

by

Salman Saeed

 mango-tree.jpg (22936 bytes)

MANGO maneuvers

General Zia sent P.M. Indira Gandhi "Anwar Rataul" Mangoes originating from Pakistani orchards. Mrs. Gandhi returned the favour after finding out that the origin of the Anwar Rataul was actually from Rataul, a garden called Shora-e-Afaq, near Meerut, India. According to a farmer from that area the story of the Anwar Ratual mango variety is that there were two brothers ; one of them, Anwar, migrated to Pakistan and started the variety Anwar Rataul.

Ironically General Zia’s C-130 plane was reportedly sabotaged by loading the plane with crates of mangoes [concealed with bombs] from Bahawalpur from where the plane took off and crashed soon after.

Recently General Musharraf before going to the Agra Peace summit in 2001 sent Chaunsa mangoes to the Indian leaders - PM and Home Ministers.

MANGO memories:

As a child growing up in Pakistan , the earliest memories that I have of mangoes are the week-end picnics with the family at some nearby irrigation rest house near a barrage; mangoes would be kept cool by leaving them overnight in buckets that were dipped into the mountain fed canal water.

Then again the mangoes trees were also the source of raw unripe mangoes, which after taking the skin off would be eaten. These were a favorite of the young school girls who would apply a mixture of salt and red chilies and eat the sour mangoes rich in vitamin C. Formations of parrots would screech into mango trees to have their take of raw mangoes. Our favourite weapons for getting at the fruit were the homemade sling shots with rubber from old tire tubes and the Y -shaped fork from the mango trees themselves.

Yet another memory is that of making fresh mango ice cream in the old hand driven ice-cream machine which would be stuffed from the sides with lots of crushed ice and salt.

I remember the day when one of my father’s bosses actually grafted a mango bud onto the branch bud of another mango tree. This aspect of creating new varieties of mangoes was a real wonder for me.

 

Mango- Nutrition facts :

Mangoes are high in beta-carotene, and contain all four recognized anti-oxidants [Vitamin A, C, E and Selenium] that prevent heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the three biggest killers in Western European and US states. One mango contains three times the recommended daily intake of beta Carotene and vitamin A. The Mughal maharajas and Nawabs and kings probably did not have this analysis but they intuitively felt good about eating mangoes and hence named it the King of fruits and cultivated it extensively.

 

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