Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The roots of scepticism in India go back a long way, and it would be hard to understand the history of Indian culture if scepticism were to be jettisoned–Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian
An outsider living in Bhopal for some time is acquainted with Bhopali braggers who love to speak about the city’s heritage, but they rarely entertain anyone contesting what they say about it because they believe they do not need any evidence to prove their points.
The problem with them is that they believe what they say or know about the city is the gospel truth, and what they do not know is insignificant. The outsider can light upon such people at any tea shop in old Bhopal. There, a large number of people gather late in the evening to discuss what they believe or understand. And if the outsider pricks his ears up at the prospect of hearing something funny and unknown, they barely disappoint him.
The other day, four middle-aged men were talking about Bhopali mangoes in a tea shop, and each one was trying to convince the other that his knowledge about the king of fruits, as the mango is called, was unchallengeable. One of them said he had direct links with the family of Nawab Sahib, the former ruler of Bhopal, and had had an opportunity to enjoy the tang of mangoes grown in the Nawab Sahib’s orchards.
As time went on, their arguments intensified. One of them suddenly said the Bhopali mango had some connections with that of Maharashtra, called 'Alphonso' or 'Hapus'.
The sudden reference to Alphonso silenced three others for a while, but they had no reason to keep mum, and they cited the examples of Lucknow’s matchless Dusseri; Fazli from Malda in West Bengal, famous for its massive size; Kesar from Gujarat; Banganapalli from Andhra Pradesh; and of course, Langra from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The trio rattled off the names of mangoes, available in different parts of the country, startling many other tea enthusiasts who were listening to the chatterboxes.
The fourth member of the group, who fell silent hearing the names of mangoes, suddenly uttered the names of ‘Noor Jahan’ from the Katthiwada area in the Alirajpur district and ‘Dahiyar’ from the state capital, Bhopal.
He also trotted out Noor Jahan’s statistics. It is one foot long and weighs around five kilograms apiece. The names of Noor Jahan and Dahiyar calmed his friends, who ordered four cups of tea to stimulate their brains to continue the debate.
As other tea lovers sitting near the quartet began to contrast the mountain of things they did not know with the molehill of things they were acquainted with, their self-esteem shrank to zilch.
One can find such chatterers everywhere in the city, but most of them gather at tea shops and on the banks of the Upper Lake, adjacent to the VIP Road, in the evening, and their tittle-tattles continue until late in the night.
Such chatterers, also humorously called 'magpies', possess a challenging personality, frequently stirring up disputes and challenging the opinions of others. However argumentative they may be, these individuals can be invaluable in debate, pushing others to better their logic and develop other sides of the facts.
Many of us criticise argumentative people, calling them quarrelsome, but they are persuasive individuals and may not necessarily practise what they preach. They, however, delight in the intellectual stimulation of any argument.
Their desire to debate a subject is rooted in their yearning for seeking truth, in their craving for drawing attention, or in their longing to show their intellectual dominance. These days, argumentative people choose social media to satiate their craving for debates, but such individuals are still not rare at railway stations, bus stands, tea shops, and other places in Bhopal.
Anyway, the quartet agreed that Dahiyar, with a creamy, curd-like consistency, is the king of all mangoes and Noor Jehan, the queen. But by the time the debate ended, the evening had crept into the lap of the night.
