I’m often asked why it is, exactly, that I chose to move to India.
Was it reconnect with my heritage? Nope.
Was it to help others and find my charitable side? Yeah, right.
A career step? Keep trying…
To learn about microfinance? Not even close.
A personal challenge? Nope.
To impress business schools? I wish.
I came to India for one simple, delicious reason – to eat mangoes. I came here with a fantasy of cold, juicy, mind-blowing mangoes falling from the sky. So imagine my disappointment when I arrived in September and I found out that there is apparently a “mango season” and I’d missed it. I’ve been in depression ever since. Sure I decided that rather than rely on Prozac, perhaps, I could settle for some of India’s other amazing fruits such as sitaphil (custard apples), guavas, chickoo (sapote), figs, jackfruit, lychees, kerala red bananas, and mosambi (sweet lime). These helped, but honestly, I wasn’t happy.
But now, things have changed. Slowly my fruit-walla’s store is starting to stock more and more boxes of mangoes. Sure they are still rare and so somewhat expensive – but they are available and they are GOOD. No, they are GREAT. Actually that’s not good enough – they are FUCKING ORGASMIC!
So what does all this mean?
It means the tables have turned. No longer do I live in third-world squalor, deeply envious of all of you with your stocked grocery stores and taxis with doors. No. Now, I eat the King of Fruits while you are stuck with a shitty Mexican wannabe hormonally overgrown sorry excuse of a “mango”. Today alone I had 3 different varieties of mangoes -alphonso, totapuri, and neelam – each with their own distinctive flavor and appeal and all of them better than sex.
How many did you have? Exactly.
The first mangoes of the season. Spotted in Bombay back in February. A preview of the glory that was to come. Two devoured in 22 seconds flat.
Sighting number 2 at Hypermart in Bombay. These were the very first true mangoes of the season.
A typical night in my apartment
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