New Delhi, Sept. 5 -- The mango is a unique mirror. The more we talk about it, the more we reveal our ignorance. The Indian compulsion to discuss the mango plays out over and over-in drawing rooms, on social media, in column inches, on air time, in trains and buses and aircraft, wherever two or three are gathered. This wall-to-wall coverage moves along well-grooved ruts of hyperbolic excitement. Almost all of it is far removed from reality.

Take the oft-repeated mango export story, for example. There's no doubt India grows the world's best mangoes, by a distance. Yet this superior product struggles to get into the export markets where customers willingly pay a premium for the best produce. This upsets non-resident Indians (NRIs), who see...