Best fruit forward

A 'mango museum' in Gujarat offers guests a chance to walk through an orchard made up of 300 varieties. Expect rare breeds from Japan, Thailand and West Bengal, as well as lessons in climate resilience

- Shreeya Amberkar

There is an unusual kind of orchard in Bhalchhel village, about 3 km from the town of Sasan Gir. Beside the Hiran River, amid bee-eaters and sunbirds, rows of trees hold a confounding array of mangoes. On one, kesari aams gleam in the sunlight; on another, golden Alphonsos hang heavy. There's a banana-shaped mango here, an apple-shaped one there. Some taste like pineapples, some like lemons.

Samsudin Jariya and his family call it the mango museum.

In all, 300 varieties of the fruit grow on their 12-acre plot. There are mangoes from Japan and Thailand, as well as from across India. One of the newest additions is a Kohitur tree, known to bear a fruit so delicate and delicious that it was said the Nawab of Bengal once banned his people from eating it, "reserving" all its fruit for himself.

The unusual museum is itself the fruit of three generations, toiling together. Work on the plot began in 1963, when Samsudin's father, Noor Ali Jariya, a farmer with land of his own not far away, bought the land at a throwaway price, because the terrain and soil were quite unsuitable for farming. Jariya, then not yet 30 and now 89, spent years levelling the soil, readying it for his son to work on. As part of this effort, he planted a few kesar mango trees, in 1970.