ECONOMICS : Shakti Maira
THE END OF MANGOES
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EVER SINCE I returned to India two years ago, after having lived in the us for twenty-two years, I have been thinking about the decline in aesthetics I see in this old and richly visual culture. I have come to a hypothesis to explain this situation: it is the 'end of mangoes' that is at the root of our aesthetic crisis!
This came to me quite by accident when I was looking at a beautiful Kashmiri shawl with an exquisite mosaic of ambis, the paisley shape of the mango often used in Indian art and textiles. Surely, I thought, the creators of this beauty must have been inspired by the blissful delight of eating delicious, sun-ripened mangoes. It was then I remembered Ramu's story:
Ramu Singh was a child in a village that lay east of the great river Yamuna, about thirty miles north of Delhi. His father owned an orchard where he grew a mango variety considered one of India's greatest: richly aromatic, sweet with a hint of green tartness, full and fleshy. In summer, the ripening mangoes would fill the air with their inviting aroma and Ramu would go to the orchard with his friends. His father would be there on a charpoy (a bed of wood and woven jute), smoking a hookah. He would let the children eat the ripe fruit and ask them to help chase away parrots and other birds. Now, anyone who has eaten a true mango will tell you what a powerful aesthetic experience it can be, and this was a much-anticipated delight in Ramu's life and those of his friends. They tasted anandam (Sanskrit for 'aesthetic delight') every summer, while the mangoes ripened, were gathered, shared with neighbours and sold in the local market.
Then one year, while the mangoes were still unripe, a fruit wholesaler from Delhi came to visit Ramu's father and offered him a sizeable sum of money for the entire crop. It was an offer that couldn't be refused. The demand for mangoes in Delhi had risen, and there was also the burgeoning export market in the Middle East, fuelled by an oil boom and the exodus of workers from the Indian subcontinent. High mango prices and earnings in dollars were good news for New Delhi's economic planners and their World Bank advisers. This was 'economic development' for them, but for Ramu and his friends it was a sad day when, drawn to the orchard by the first fragrance of mangoes and the screeching cacophony of parrots, they were rudely driven away by the wholesaler's watchman. They saw workers pulling down all the mangoes, raw and green. That year and every year after - for the wholesaler's tempting crop purchase offers never ceased - Ramu and his friends never got to eat even one of those delicious mangoes. It was the end of their annual anandam.
But why pick unripe mangoes? What sense would that make, Ramu wondered?
He knew nothing about market economics and chemical ripening. The wholesaler
denuded the orchard early so that it was easy to transport the mangoes.
Then, to catch the early season's high price, he would box the mangoes
in newspaper and chemicals that heated the fruit and forced their ripening.
Not only did Ramu never taste that divine delight of a sun-ripened mango,
no-one else did either, not in Delhi and not in Dubai. The market-driven,
export-led economic system had done the mango in.
This happened all over India. The best mangoes were picked green, artificially
ripened, transported to distant places, and a whole nation lost one of
its anandam-creating wonders. We lost the mango, and our children lost
an important aesthetic experience.
WHAT ABOUT THE trees themselves? How do they feel to have their fruit rudely and prematurely plucked? Not to have the satisfaction of completing their fruiting, and to lose the flitting, screeching parrots? I wonder if the trees too experience anandam? Is the 'desertification of delight' wider than just people: does it also include plants and animals?
Traditionally, in Indian culture, aesthetic delight or anandam has been both the source and purpose of the arts. My argument is this: a decrease in anandam causes a fall in aesthetic creative and appreciative sensibilities. The disappearance of good mangoes in India may well be an overlooked cause of a sharp decrease in aesthetic delight across most sections of Indian society. It may well be this that is causing our aesthetic crisis.
We need more delight, so we can be more delight-full. So let's please bring back the marvellous sun- and tree-ripened mangoes. o
Shakti Maira is a painter and philosopher.
Keywords: economy aesthetics
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