The King of Summer

I refuse to believe anyone living in Mumbai can genuinely, truly love summer. Beaches, ice creams and barbecues are more of a December/January thing in a city where the coldest it gets is 18 degrees Celsius, if we're lucky. Summer mostly consists of sweating as soon as you step out of the shower, struggling to put on any clothes over your body as the muggy air clings to every pore of your skin, nearly crying if you need to step out of the sweet embrace of your air conditioner because no piece of clothing you own is small enough or thin enough for the vicious humidity and the unimaginable heat that makes you feel light-headed as soon as it hits you. Before I completely put you off of ever visiting Mumbai though, let me tell you the reason summer is still my favourite season; mangoes.

If I think summer, I am instantly transported back to my school days. The end of March brought with it so many things to look forward to. The end of the school year being number one of course, with 2 glorious months of doing absolutely nothing (in aforementioned air-conditioned room of course). Summer in Mumbai is at its peak in April and May, with temperatures reaching close to 50 degrees and humidity at an all-time high. As a kid who grew up crying as soon as it got even a little hot, its a huge deal that I desperately longed for April, as it meant mangoes were finally BACK. The whole deal was made even sweeter because my mother always said that we would start buying mangoes as soon as the festival of holi passed, which is my favourite Indian festival. I would wait in giddy anticipation for weeks on end for when I would get to celebrate the festival of colours with my friends and start begging mom for mangoes the very next day.

Now, for someone who hasn't eaten a mango during an Indian summer, its nearly impossible to understand my (really, the whole country's) obsession with mangoes. Out of the various different kinds available, my personal favourite is the Alphonso. Everything from the saffron hue to the rich, creamy, buttery flesh is perfect. Oh, to peel the skin and eat it straight off the seed! The mango is all the rage in India from April to June, with markets across the city selling them by the crates. Newspapers quote prices that fluctuate on the daily, and it is a matter of celebration when you buy your first dozen for the season. I can almost feel the excitement I'd have all day on my last day of school, running home and peeling off my uniform so I could messily savour the sweet, sweet first bite of that succulent flesh, rightly called the king of fruits in India. My mother would try to curb my cravings to 2 mangoes a day, in part to stop me from completely blowing the monthly budget with my obsession, and because she claimed it would come with bad skin and weight gain. But I didn't care. I could eat them for every meal and never get sick of them, and I'm sure it was the same for everyone else I knew.

Restaurants get in on the madness too, with mango desserts in abundance on every menu. Mango milkshakes, sorbets, cakes, even in curries and Indian sweets, its truly mango madness everywhere. My most favourite thing though, is mango with cream, and yes its exactly what it sounds like; mango pieces with a whole bunch of whipped cream. SO GOOD. A variation on this is mango with vanilla ice cream, and that folks, is the entirety of my childhood summer memories in a cup. On Saturday nights, my father would drive us downtown to an old local restaurant to enjoy that simple but divine treat and it would make my whole weekend. A pulpier variety of mango is also pretty popular. This pulp, called aam ras (or the juice of mangoes) is often eaten with puris, a deep-fried disc of bread, a match made in heaven. This would be part of our Sunday lunches in summer, and we would often have friends over to join in in devouring as many puris as we could till we felt like we could never eat again. My cousins and I had our own mango tradition too; pour some ghee (clarified butter) over a bowl of the pulp, freeze till the ghee is solid and forms a nice crust on top, and then sprinkle some ginger powder. That might sound strange to anyone who has never tried it, but man, there are few things better than that on a hot summer night.

Every Indian will give you the very specific memories they have associated with mangoes. I asked my best friend for his and he immediately went on nostalgically about all the adventures he had with his father, climbing mango trees and spending afternoons pickling the fruits of their labour (pun intended of course). My own love for the king of fruits is well-known; as soon as I mentioned to my friends that I had a writing prompt about my favourite summer food, they knew it'd be a love letter to mangoes. And for good reason. To me, summer IS mangoes and always will be, even though I live half a world away and haven't experienced the magic in years now. Some year very soon, we will finally be reunited and it'll be a summer to remember.