Written By Harshikaa A Khanna (Grade 7)
Himsagar mangoes are West Bengal’s specialty, found in the Malda district, also known as the Mango City of West Bengal. It is appreciated for its sweetness, sweet aroma, fibreless inside and thinner peels. All the Bengalis patiently wait for the summers to get their hands on the Himsagar mangoes and relish the fresh and creamy taste of these mangoes.
My family owns a mango farm in Malda, and we plant Himsagar mango trees. As my mother used to say, “The bigger, the better, the more income.”
My entire childhood was spent in Malda, burying the huge pits of the Himsagar mangoes into the rich alluvial soil with my tiny hands. I took after my father and always wanted to be a mango farmer. The thing that used to make me get out of bed in the morning was watching my mango trees grow enormous.
Since we owned a mango farm, we’d always have mangoes desserts being made every other week. It was fun to live in a place which smelled of fresh mangoes and soil. When I was a bit younger, my mother was fed up with me always soiling my clothes and had to scrub hard to get the stains out.
My father usually spends his entire summer in Malda, sweating in the scorching heat and catering to his farm. But this summer was different. The sweltering heat and humidity had dried out the crops completely, and the heavy rain caused more destruction. Annually, the mango production was three to three- and- a- half lakh tons in the Malda district alone. But this year, the mango produce has significantly gone down by 50%.
“I was just doing the usual, planting the pits, watering regularly. I- I do not know what happened. Th- the next few days, the trees were producing smaller mangoes; and my shopkeeper in Kolkata said that the sales were low.”, he said.
The Himsagar mangoes had to have an increase in cost. The loss in the production would affect around one lakh people
who were directly dependent on mango cultivation. Mangoes have hit the market, but the prices are quite high due to low yield of the crop in 2024.
This was a horrible time for my childhood. For almost a month, my parents spent their day doing odd jobs for our neighbors while I was home alone studying. My mother finally got a job as a barista and babysitter while my father went to Malda to fix his farm. He decided to take us with since he was going to spend a lot of time at the farm.
While we were driving on uneven roads, we saw that there was a lot of smoke everywhere. It was also full of trash. No wonder the farm got destroyed. It was not like this a few years back. Soon enough, we came to an abrupt halt. When I saw my parents exit the car, I did the same. Then, I saw it. Under all the smoke was the farm.
The house was still intact and still smelt of soil, but not mangoes. I informed my mother that I could not just ignore the fact that the place was surrounded by smoke. She said that that was the way things were and that we could do nothing about it, but couldn’t we? I told her that we could spread awareness about the smoke and the way fossil fuels were burnt.
After a lot of persuasion, she finally agreed to help me. We said that instead of using traditional methods and burning fossil fuel, we could replace it with renewable sources of energy. We got people to listen to our views and our points.
Over the course of a month, the farm was back to looking like itself again and my mother and I organized cleanups and raising of awareness in polluted areas. The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation has increased the rate of global warming. Like my father, numerous people lost their jobs with the release of the greenhouse gases. But now, that was not the case.
Together we should work together to make a greener environment and the Earth a better place to live in. “Be a part of the solution, not the pollution,”, said my wise parents.
Featured Image Courtesy – IndiaMART
