NEW DELHI — India, a country of roughly 1.4 billion people, has a new national obsession, and the obsession is a fruit. The fruit is the avocado, and the fruit, which for generations was known in the country by a name that is not kind to it, is now imported in such volume that the number went up by a quarter in a single year. The Hindustan Times reports that avocado imports surged 27 percent, and the reason, per the reason, is that the country’s upper middle class has decided, all at once, that the fruit is theirs.

The history is the funny part. For a long time, the avocado in India was, in the specific, a fruit for a different purpose. It was, per the people who used it, a staple of the dog food supply, and the name it went by in the trade was not “avocado.” It was the thing you fed the animal. That name, in the specific, is not being repeated here, because the name is part of the joke, and the joke, this year, has stopped. The fruit that fed the dogs is now, in the specific, feeding the Instagram feed, and the 27 percent is not a number, it is a mood.

"The fruit that India called dog food is now a 27% import machine. The dog is, in the specific, not upset. The dog is, in the specific, out of the fruit."

This is a trade story, and the trade story has a number in it, which is the 27, and a cause in it, which is a demographic. The country’s urban middle class has, in the specific, discovered the avocado, and the discovery has produced the thing discoveries produce, which is a demand that the domestic supply cannot meet, and a demand that the domestic supply cannot meet produces an import, and the import, in the specific, comes from Peru, and the import, in the specific, is 27 percent more than it was. The avocados are not, in the specific, being grown in India at a scale that would matter. The avocados are, in the specific, being imported, and the importing, in the specific, is the story.

THE 27: A TALLY

  • The number: India's avocado imports, up 27 percent in a single year.
  • The old name: A word that means "dog food." The fruit, in the specific, was fed to the animals.
  • The new name: A smoothie ingredient. A toast topping. A photo. The fruit, in the specific, is now for the person.
  • The source: Peru. The fruit, in the specific, is a long way from the dog it used to feed.

There is a pattern, in the pattern of food, of a thing being cheap and unloved and then becoming expensive and loved, and the pattern is not kind to the thing. The avocado was, in the specific, the cheapest fruit on the market, and it was, in the specific, not wanted, and now it is, in the specific, wanted, and the wanting, in the specific, has a number, and the number, in the specific, is a trade deficit, and the trade deficit, in the specific, is 27 percent, and the 27 percent, in the specific, is a fruit that used to be for the dog. The dog, for its part, has not commented. The dog, in the specific, is out of the fruit.

At press time, the government had not said whether the avocado boom would become a trade policy, and the dogs of India had not said whether they were upset, and the fruit, for all that has happened to it, was still, in every way that mattered, just an avocado.