Put a Mango On It!

Desis love mangoes 🥭🥭🥭 SO much that we put reminders of them anywhere and everywhere. Clothing, rangoli patterns and mehendi all feature the ubiquitous paisley pattern.

This love affair has been going on for millennia 🥰 The prominence of mangoes in mythology and religious scriptures has led historians to believe that the fruit has been cultivated on the subcontinent for 6000 years.

For example, in the epic Ramayana, Valmiki speaks of mango groves, while the woman who presented a mango grove to Lord Buddha was named Amradarika. (Amra is the Sanskrit word for mango.)

But we don’t need to adorn our hands in mehendi mangoes to invoke this longstanding history - we just need to say the fruit’s name 🎤

The English word “mango” originates from the Tamil “man-gay,” which became “manga” when Portuguese imperialists took the fruit to West Africa and Brazil in the 1500s. And the scientific species name of the common mango is Mangifera Indica, which means “an Indian plant bearing mangoes.”

Kind of a circular definition if you ask us, but at least it ensures the Desi claim to mangoes is never forgotten 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️