MANLY MANGOES

“Come between four and five at evening hours, the hustle and bustle will be a good canvas for your photographs” it was the answer I have received when asked for permission to enter and take snapshots of one of the largest mango markets in Asia.

The timing stood out truly a dampener; I will drip wet with sweat in a few seconds before I arrange my camera. May month was such a tortuous misery where the sun ignites the fire, sets its heat waves bouncing across the city for a month. Every narrow street of the city shimmers in the hot white rays of the sun.

Despite, the scorching that builds up in the day temperatures; I see the absence of any comforting facilities, while hundreds of men and women working in tandem at the market. I like the exchange of raw humor among them, and an easy attitude to help one another, perhaps a ploy to escape the fatigue and get the sheer sweaty job done quickly.

Their job involves unloading the mangoes carried from the gardens usually in tractors and packing them and loading into metro cities bound trucks. In a season that spans between March months to June, the market accounts for nearly 25000 metric tons (one metric ton = 1000 Kgs,) of mangoes dispatched all over India. The major mango varieties are Banginipalli, Totapuri, and a popular local variety of Chinna Rasalu.

(Vijayawada mango market is 1km from Vijayawada Railway station, Andhra Pradesh in India).