MUMBAI, India — Inside his tiny office near the entrance of Crawford Market, Arvind Morde is a bit harried. It is mango season, after all. His telephone rings. A client wants to ship a box of mangoes to Germany, a gift for the Indian-born conductor Zubin Mehta. Another caller wants to send a box to Switzerland; still another, to Singapore.

Mr. Morde, 66, takes down each order on a small pad, scribbling the names and addresses. For 92 years, his family has sold fruit from the same prime location beneath the stone arches of Crawford Market, and Mr. Morde has learned that Indians, wherever they may be, enjoy a good mango, widely known here as the King of Fruits.

“It is the only fruit appreciated by everyone,” Mr. Morde says with understated simplicity.

India arguably has only two seasons: monsoon season and mango season. Monsoon season replenishes India’s soil. Mango season, more than a few literary types have suggested, helps replenish India’s soul.

Mangoes are objects of envy, love and rivalry as well as a new status symbol for India’s new rich. Mangoes have even been tools of diplomacy. The allure is foremost about the taste but also about anticipation and uncertainty: Mango season in the region lasts only about 100 days, traditionally from late March through June; is vulnerable to weather; and usually brings some sort of mango crisis, real or imagined.