UKHCA 2022 - Annual Brochure

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Sharodiya Durga Puja 2022শারদীয়া দুর্গোৎসব ১৪২৯The Taste of Indian Summers In UK (Rama Karmokar)Having been resident in the UK for the last ten years, my fond memories of the past are always of theones from India. And these become stronger in the summer season when the kids and I are taking abreak from school and office for a holiday of some sort. All throughout my childhood, the summer seasonstarted with the availability of sweet and delicious mangoes in the market. Being from a middle classfamily, my father always waited for a few weeks for the first lot of mangoes which arrived in the marketto end, so that the price of this precious fruit that everyone liked came down and he could bring homea constant supply of the yellow “amrut phal” ( Indian word to resemble a heavenly drink/object). As theyoungest child, I always was the first one to receive the mango in the house and also enjoyed the manyextra portions from everyone in the house. I think every Indian in some way or the other remembersIndian summers mostly by the thought of eating mangoes. For me, among the many favourite things Ilove, “Alphonso Mango” tops the list even today in 2022.In 2012, when my husband and I arrived in the UK to make it our home, I was pregnant with our firstdaughter. Being pregnant meant not eating a lot of food items which could “potentially” harm the baby.This meant a “NO” to my most favourite things. I was upset, but controlled my urge to eat mangoesby making a promise ( or made my husband promise me) that in 2013, after the delivery of my child,I would receive a continuous supply of Indian Mangoes, Alphonso (Hapoos, our Marathi name for thismango), no matter what! To my worst fears, in 2013, the export of Indian Mangoes was banned in theUK ( or that’s what I was told ) and there was not enough or minimal availability of mangoes in themarket. Over the next few years, we managed to get some Indian mangoes even if not Alphonso all thetime, to satisfy our hunger for this yellow fruit.Farmers sorting mangoes before packing them into boxesPacked set of Mangoes readyfor transport to UK fromIndiaPacked set of Mangoes ready for transportto UK from IndiaIn 2017 , as we moved our family base to Kent, I came across many Indian communities who I eventuallygrew very close to over the years, due to festivals or events that we all celebrated together. One suchcommunity brought me in touch with a gentleman of Indian origin, Mr Nikhil Shinde who worksas an IT professional as his day job, but also does the business of selling Indian Mangoes to IndianCommunities across London and Kent . I still remember calling Nikhil excitedly the first time, to checkhow he could deliver the Indian Mangoes on a regular basis to my house in Kent . To my surprise, Ilearnt that this whole business or trade worked better if there were a lot of people ordering from thesame area so that it would become cost effective for sub-dealers like Nikhil to supply mangoes directlyto everyone's home. Being in IT myself, I never imagined myself gathering a group of families withinmy own resident community , for the sake of mangoes! But I had to try something before losing theopportunity of bringing my favourite Alphonso mangoes home! Nikhil was already running a successfulmango delivery group all around Kent and London for over a year, from 2016 at that point. He verynicely explained to me how volunteers from different areas came forward to be the collection pointsof these mango deliveries and how the distribution was subsequently achieved. Now I not only had todecide how to bring many people to order mangoes from Nikhil but also think about being a collectionpoint for it as well.They say if you taste Indian mangoes once, you can never forget it. Maybe it was this that convincedme to talk to my area members who would be interested in ordering mangoes from a known dealerand surprisingly many of them came forward to form this group. I volunteered to become the collectionvolunteer for the area of Dartford in Kent. Nikhil was kind enough to start with our new area withUK Hindu Cultural Association36www.ukhca.communityukhca.info@gmail.comRegistered UK Charity No. 1069932
Sharodiya Durga Puja 2022শারদীয়া দুর্গোৎসব ১৪২৯full faith in me and my group, to start with small numbers as well. He had already told me about hisfamily business of mangoes back home and how he was doing this only for his passion for this fruit sothat it could be enjoyed by other fellow Indians . He was so kind that even if we had very few numbersduring the initial few weeks, he still delivered good quality mangoes every week at my doorstep inDartford. Over the years I learnt that Nikhil sometimes has to bear with transport costs on his own ifthe numbers are low.In the first year within the Dartford area, Nikhil learnt a lot about customers and experiences fromthem. Many Indians would expect replacements or a price reduction for every little damaged mangothey received. Little did anyone know how the mangoes arrived and what an onerous task it was !However, even with minor hiccups , everyday Nikhil’s mango quality was well received by my areagroup and more and more people joined from other areas around Dartford too. Little did I know that thecommunity that was started just to receive good quality Indian Mangoes for my area in Dartford wouldgrow from 20 people to more than 100 people in a span of a month. I can never forget the year 2017, as all the way from April to July we ate mangoes every week. Over the years since then, this groupcontinues to order mangoes from Nikhil every summer . Today , in 2022, we have completed 5 yearsof this association and I have learnt a lot about this mango trade that goes on between India and theUK. From selecting the right farmer for export, to sending the packed fruits to UK , to receiving it atthe airport for quality check and then bringing it right upto the doorstep of the customer, there is a lotthat goes on to making this successful. Kudos to working professionals like Nikhil who do this just forpassion. To top it, Nikhil is not only supplying good quality Indian mangoes to different communitiesbut also donates a portion of his profits from this trade to any known charitable organisation for theirwork.As a part of this donation, Nikhil has kindly donated 250£ to the UKHCA for theyear 2022 for their contribution to Indian Cultural events and for organising theMaa Durga festival for the public, free of charge in Kent and for bringing Indiancommunities together. Some of the pictures below are just highlights of how muchwork goes on behind the background to get these mangoes to customers in UK.Nikhil , who goes every week to collect these mangoes from the airport and delivers it to collection points acrossLondon after his office hours.UK Hindu Cultural Association37www.ukhca.communityukhca.info@gmail.comRegistered UK Charity No. 1069932
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UKHCA 2022 - Annual Brochure

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