New Delhi, July 4 -- Why the mango? What is it about this fruit?

For all of our innumerable comestibles, nothing generates excitement in India like the mango. It can't be just the sweet taste of fruity flesh. No gustatory appeal can explain the unequalled hysteria over the mango.

Does any fruit or plant have a comparable relationship with a country as does the mango with India? The cherry blossom in Japan? While the earliest references to sakura go back more than a thousand years, hanami or the viewing of flowers became a national-level mega event only after the Meiji restoration in 1871.

The mango blossom in India? Emperors were advertising their sponsorship of mango groves in the third century BCE. Ancient Sanskrit literature depicts...