Results tagged “india”

For the first two weeks in February, I joined my family in a trip to India. Though I was born here in the U.S., we used to go back to visit family in India pretty regularly when I was a kid. But then I got older, was always busy, and before I knew it, it had been 25 years since I'd visited. It was well past time to remedy that oversight, and perhaps the single thing that drew me back the most was the idea of visiting the village where my father was born and raised.

During our brief visit there, my father and his brothers took me on a walk through the rice paddies that surround their village. Our family owns all of the paddies from their house until the nearby river. Along the way, I stopped to quickly take this shot of the Shiva temple that the village uses for worship.

I still have vague memories of accompanying my grandfather once or twice on his near-daily walks to this temple when I was a kid. His walks to the temple continued until he was well into his 80s and perhaps his 90s.

The green in the foreground is unretouched, the actual vibrant color of a newly-planted second crop of basmati rice. Historically, this region of western Orissa was plagued by recurring droughts. A single rice crop was a blessing, just enough to provide sustenance in an area where a family of four often earns the equivalent of less than $500 a year.

But in recent years, a combination of government-planned irrigation projects and the serendipitous discovery of some precious gemstones in the region funded a pump system that enables a second annual crop. This second crop meant many villagers could go from just putting food in their mouths to actually making a little bit of money. Nearly every home in the village was made of mud when I lived there as a child, but on this visit nearly every home had been rebuilt with brick, with some even sprouting second stories. The village school had been rebuild and classes extended all the way to high school instead of ending at the fourth grade.

The style of temple shown here is very typical of the architecture of village temples in our state; We saw similar mandirs in honor of Shiva, Rama, a few Krishna temples, and other various deities in the many villages we drove by during our trip. I didn't actually go in this temple, but I spend some time walking in the nearby rice paddies that are still being planted and harvested in my name.

I like to drink tea, either from my neighborhood tea shop or from what I brew at home, a nice cup of Darjeeling. "Darjeeling Tea" means more than you might think.

According to the Tea Board Of India - "Darjeeling Tea" means: tea which has been cultivated, grown, produced, manufactured and processed in tea gardens (current schedule whereof is attached hereto) in the hilly areas of Sadar Sub-Division, only hilly areas of Kalimpong Sub-Division comprising of Samabeong Tea Estate, Ambiok Tea Estate, Mission Hill Tea Estate and Kumai Tea Estate and Kurseong Sub-Division excluding the areas in jurisdiction list 20,21,23,24,29,31 and 33 comprising Siliguri Sub-Division of New Chumta Tea Estate, Simulbari and Marionbari Tea Estate of Kurseong Police Station in Kurseong Sub-Division of the District of Darjeeling in the State of West Bengal, India. Tea which has been processed and manufactured in a factory located in the aforesaid area, which, when brewed, has a distinctive, naturally occurring aroma and taste with light tea liquour and the infused leaf of which has a distinctive fragrance.

All that is according to the friendly dictates of the Tea Board of India, which is hell-bent on making this insanely detailed litany of geographical peculiarities acquire the same cachet as, well, champagne. As the Tea Board is fond of saying, "Darjeeling Tea cannot be grown or manufactured anywhere else in the world. Just as Champagne is indigenous to the Champagne district of France, so is Darjeeling Tea to Darjeeling."

Hmm. Perhaps.

As I was reveling in earlier, Indian mangoes are coming to the United States. As I mentioned in my last post, Indian mangoes had essentially been off-limits ever since the invention of jet airplanes would have made it feasible for them to be imported, with only a small number of grey-market mangoes getting into the country. It's not surprising that it's been mostly illegal for Indian mangoes to come to the United States; Until about forty years ago, it was mostly illegal for Indian people to come to the United States.

Though the justification for the prohibition on mangoes was never explicitly articulated, it's pretty clearly a classic case of trade protectionism, and was only remedied in the name of national security. Predictably, when I told some friends that we traded nuclear fuel for mangoes, they were a little startled; Sure, these might be some great-tasting fruits, but was this really a fair trade? My quick take's pretty obvious ("Trust me, Indian mangoes are the bomb.") but there's a deeper point about what it takes for the U.S. to embrace the opportunity of engaging with India. We've been most willing to open our eyes to India when we've felt U.S. security was at stake, as my own family's history shows. That lack of vision may have cost us some fantastic opportunities, but at least we can revel in the ones we've got today.

Madhur Jaffrey, the maven of mango, the ambassador of Alphonso, made the case eloquently in the New York Times a month ago.

Whatever anyone else might say, America's new nuclear and trade pact with India is a win-win deal. India gets nuclear fuel for its energy needs and America, doing far better in what might be called a stealth victory, finally gets mangoes.

Most people I talk to don't know that until 1965, when President Johnson signed the amendments to the Immigration and Nationality act, Indian immigrants were officially undesirable according to U.S. law. My father came to the United States in 1963, and I've seen estimates that there were fewer than 50,000 Indians living in the U.S. at that time.

My dad was able to enter the country before the Immigration law was reformed because he was entering as a student; He got his PhD just a few years after entering the country. But I suspect at least part of the reason he was given permission was his area of study: He is a civil engineer, working (as he still does today) to help build the Interstate highway system. Along the way, he's helped with foundational work for thousands of miles of highways, and his career even in its early stages was occupied with helping in the construction of projects ranging from Sea-Tac airport to Disney World.

The thing many people forget, though, is that the Eisenhower Interstate System was presented as much as a security initiative as a resource for business and recreation. So unusually talented young students who could help in the expansion of the highway system during that first decade of its construction were considered especially valuable, regardless of their countries of origin.

One of the lessons here, of course, is that we make laws to keep the foreign influences out so we'll be safe, until we realize that we need to make exceptions to those laws in order to keep ourselves safe. But after thinking about this a bit on Father's Day, the more profound lesson for me was about the fact that some people are so talented and ambitious that even barriers like law and prejudice aren't enough to contain them.

And of course, some mangoes are just so damn tasty that their availability is a matter of national security.

Indian mangoes have arrived in the U.S. for the first time, and for me, my family, and my friends, this is a big freaking deal. I've got a lot to say about the subject, but if you weren't familiar with the fact that this is the first time in history that we in the United States are able to eat mangoes that are actually from the place that mangoes were born, it's time to get acquainted.

Some good recent news coverage:

• From the Boston Globe, Indian Mangoes Arrive At Long Last:

Last March, President George W. Bush signed two landmark pacts with India: one on nuclear technology, the other lifting a 17-year restriction on the import of Indian mangoes. The world's news media paid attention to the nuclear accord. But in the Indian community here and throughout the country, the magic word was "mango."

• In the Philly Inquirer, A new kind and queen of mangoes:

But this was not just any mango. It was most definitely not the pretty but bland mainstream specimens from South America that, Indians sniff, serve more to decorate the table than to be consumed. Nor was it the more aromatic, tangier Mexican imports found at many Indian grocers and sold cheap by the dozen.

This was an Alphonso from India - the hands-down "king of mangoes," as it's known. The deep-orange flesh oozes sticky juice, the texture is smooth, with hardly a fiber, and the heady aroma fills the room. And what about the flavor? The sweetness can be so intense that more than one Indian expat has described it as "heavenly."

• The Los Angeles Times, Mango Mania:

Though hundreds of mango varieties are grown in India, only three -- Alphonso, Kesar and Banganpalli -- will be available in the U.S. this season. Alphonsos and Kesars were the first to arrive.

Alphonsos, smallish and golden-yellow, are amazingly sweet and succulent, with floral aromas and a creamy, fiber-free texture. Los Angeles-based produce wholesaler Melissa's received a shipment the first week of May, says Robert S. Schueller, director of public relations for the firm. Although Melissa's distributed them to retailers in Texas, Pennsylvania
and New York, L.A. retailers didn't bite, Schueller says, thanks to their high price -- they sell for $35 for a case of 12.

• There's also a primer on mango varieties in the LA Times as well.
• All Things Considered offers U.S. Braces for (Indian) Mango Madness

Oh, and in case you're really a beginner, check out the Wikipedia article on mangoes. Once you're done with all the required reading, we'll move on to more advanced topics.