GOA’S MANGO By Valmiki Faleiro Goa’s mango season 2008 flopped. The rains this Feb / March deflowered the crop. Prices went through the roof, as did local press coverage of the humble mango. There was reason why mango suddenly became Goa’s journalistic celebrity this year: with air charged over the impending entry of a national newspaper competing in Goa, local English language dailies perked local news to never-before levels. Anything and everything Goan suddenly became important. Including the mango, its yield, past harvest stats, prices, its pests, its history, blah blah. Even poor cashew nut made Page 1 banner headlines in Goa’s oldest English newspaper. Former editors of that newspaper must have turned in their graves. The new Goa edition of the national daily did not lag behind. Said its report on May 9: “This situation is particularly ironic considering that Goa was one of the earliest places to cultivate different varieties of mango in vast quantities, thanks to the Jesuits who brought the fruit here in the 17th century.” That, amid a host of other shocking howlers. The writer, obviously, was oblivious of the mango’s botanical name, “Mangifera indica.” Else, he’d have known that Jesuits did not bring the mango to Goa in the 17th Century, that mango is indigenous to India. It existed on Indian soil even before Lord Buddha, forget the Portuguese and the Jesuits. Sad we lost our ancient Buddhism, because it was Panna, an apostle of Lord Buddha, who spread that pacifist faith on the west coast of India. Panna was a Goan Brahmin from Ambaulim-Quepem, one of the first known Goan expatriates who, from Sopara, traded areca nut and sandalwood with places as afar as Tibet and Mudguiri. In time, Panna converted to Buddhism, spread the faith, and died in 543 BC, at age 80. Had we known Buddhist lore, we would know that Lord Buddha was gifted with a mango orchard, so he could rest in its abundant shade. Why, even a Hindu should know that mango is part of our ancient folklore and religious customs … its leaf, for instance, is a decorative tradition at some festivals. Sheer blasphemy to say that Jesuits brought the mango to Goa. Europeans only taught us the art of grafting, which is how Goa’s 100+ known mango varieties came about. As for Jesuits, consider this: outside Benaulim’s St. John the Baptist church, an ancient mango tree still produces luscious-looking, fleshy fruit. It is sweet on the outside but is terribly sour inside. Wise Benaulim-kars christened it ‘Jesuita.’ We often go overboard when talking of the past, when giving credit to the ‘firangis.’ There was this absolutely unadulterated nonsense that the Portuguese brought the coconut to Goa and taught Goans to make feni. Coconut is of Indo-Malayan origin. Indians, and Goans, knew distillation much before Portugal was born as a nation. From times ancient, we made ‘Som Ras,’ nectar of the gods (and man.) An entire community, the Bhandari Samaj, traditionally tapped toddy and distilled it into coconut urraca and feni. The Portuguese, who brought cashew from Brazil, only showed how its juice, with existing process, could turn into the celebrated Goan cashew feni. Turning to mango, the greatest amount of work done to study, collect and preserve different varieties of the Goan mango was by ICAR’s Dr. PA Mathew. He painstakingly sourced and grafted 74 varieties and planted them on ICAR grounds as mother trees, for future propagation. The present unworthy successor, Dr. SP Singh, busies himself only talking … of propagating varieties from the North East, where he previously talked. Two years ago, I told him where he could find mother trees of two rare varieties the ICAR did not have, ‘Papel Branco’ and ‘Araujo.’ He is yet to collect scions and graft them for posterity. Had Dr. Mathew been in his place, the ICAR would be richer by another two distinct Goan mango varieties. I’ll part with a thought to ponder over. Like tiny Goa on the western seaboard of India, Portugal was a tiny nation on the western seaboard of the world’s then centre: Europe. The Portuguese came here for spices, after the overland route to Asia closed down with the fall of Constantinople during the Crusade wars. In time, they also colonialised Brazil. They took the mango from India to the other side of the globe in Brazil (and from there, to the western world.) They brought the cashew from Brazil/South America all the way to India, and from here to the eastern world. Mango and cashew are botanical cousins (Anacardiaceae.) Sounds strange? (Ends.) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the July 20, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
