Poet Na Dho Mahanor, who passes away at Pune hospital, had named custard apple variety after Lata Mangeshkar

Aurangabad, August 3

Renowned poet and farmer Namdev Dhondo Mahanor, popularly called Na Dho Mahanor, had reminisced how custard apples cultivated in his farm came to be named after legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar.

A large number of patrons called the fruit ‘Latafal’ instead of ‘sitafal’, the common name for the tropical fruit, Mahanor, who passed away at a Pune hospital on Thursday, had told PTI.

The Padma Shri recipient had said the custard apples, grown in his farm at Palaskheda village, which is near the world-famous Ajanta caves, managed to stay alive despite the land being barren and the produce getting vandalised occasionally by animals.

“This custard apple is among the sweetest and manages to withstand all odds, just like Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar. Despite her father dying early, she took along her siblings, worked hard and reached the peak,” he had said.

“She has sung songs that I have written in films like ‘Jait re Jait’ and others, but that is not why I have named this variety of custard apples after her. It is because even after facing all the odds, the sweetness in Lata didi’s voice is peerless, just like this fruit,” he added.

Earlier, it was called ‘Latafal’ only at the farm and in its vicinity, but since 1990, almost everyone began calling it by that name, Mahanor said.

The former legislator had also recalled that Lata came to meet him during each of the two surgeries he underwent at Dinanath Mangeshkar hospital in Pune.