Many a Slip

last jack hanging

This year, our jackfruits have been ripening rather late… about a month later than in other years.
Someone got impatient a month ago and stole one of the low-hanging fruit. This roused Arunachalam, who is working for us at the moment, to a fury and he barricaded some of the gaps in the fence, through which people can get in.
And all of us (including Arunachalam, of course) enjoyed a run of 5 superb jackfruit. Till yesterday.

In the evening, I noticed one of the lower-hanging fruit was missing. Since I have passed the baton to the boys wrt checking—plucking at the right time—sharpening the knives—dressing the jackfruit and so on, I had to call Varun to confirm that the fruit was not one that we had eaten.

He came and immediately said that it was stolen, and raced off, me following, in the direction we thought that the thieves would have taken.
At some point, he told me that I could return home—nobody to catch—and that he would return a different way.

A short while later, he was shouting out to me. I stopped. He returned to say that he had seen two boys, likely eating the jackfruit, further down and would I come fast.

I slithered and skidded down the path that he negotiated surefooted as a goat. But too late. The thieves had gone.

We returned in the twilight, by a path unknown to me, and reached the place in our fence which had been breached. I struggled over it courtesy a (literal) helping hand from Varun and realised that my chasing days were over. I passed the baton, telling the boys that henceforth in such situations they should carry on and confront the people; shouting out for me whether I was at hand or not.

Varun asked me if my wish for the last jackfruit was to be able to eat it peacefully, or to have the thieves try again and catch them red-handed this time.

This morning, Arunachalam was really furious, and said that we should have given chase with a stick. Had we caught them, we could have had a “nyayam pechu” in the village and claimed to have had 10 jackfruit stolen (instead of the two that have actually been stolen)

I said that the only thing to do was to plant more jackfruit trees so that there would be enough for us, for orombarai (kith and kin), and for the thieves. He was not amused and said, “Oru tharavai pal-la vodaicha, marubidium pala-va thirudi thinga maataanga.” (If you break their teeth once, they won’t steal and eat jackfruit next time)

The score for this season is 2 stolen, 5 eaten, 1 hanging.
Dekha jayega, uska kya hoga...

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Tags: fences, jackfruit, the boys, thieves, village life, villagers