March 12, 2006 ☼ Aside ☼ Economy ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
She’s preparing Americans for the event. And how.
Whatever anyone else might say, America’s new nuclear and trade pact with India is a win-win deal. India gets nuclear fuel for its energy needs and America, doing far better in what might be called a stealth victory, finally gets mangoes…
These mangoes will be seasonal. Americans will learn to wait for them, just as Indians do. They cannot be pushed to grow in hothouses. Indian mango trees, many of them hundreds of years old (and some reputed to be thousands of years old) need to breathe the same free, fresh air Indians breathe and live through India’s three main seasons: summer, the monsoons and winter. Only then will they deign to bear fruit…
Under this new arrangement, reasonably honest Indian-Americans will no longer have to turn into furtive smugglers to bring mangoes into the country. The one attempt I made was quite unsuccessful. A customs inspector, possibly noting my shifty eyes, asked me quite directly, “Are you carrying any mangoes?” Unable to lie, I had to reply in the affirmative. The mangoes were confiscated.
This would have been bearable had I not been able to peep through a slight crack in the customs office door, a few moments later. The officers were cutting up the mangoes and eating them. That hurt. [NYT]
This post should more than make up for the absence of the usual Sunday Levity post yesterday
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