I must have been 12, pacing a couple of steps behind Appa, walking towards the town square.
“He is your carbon copy,” says a gentleman. “He also walks like you.” Must be another of Appa’s clients flattering him into a Sunday appointment.
The workers from the coffee estates are also at the square, waiting for the bus. Straining their eyes towards the highway, lighting up their bidis. A couple of Mahindra jeeps idle around, small estate owners looking to pick up cheap labor. The shopkeepers around the square haggle with them.
There is a distant hum. The workers pick up their bags in anticipation. They rush in as soon as the bus arrives. The bus drives off, leaving behind thick diesel smoke and wafts of arrack in the air.
“Did you find Andruman?” Appa asks the shopkeeper in Malayalam.
“No sir, nobody has seen him for months,” says the shopkeeper.
“We need him now, otherwise, everything will be lost to the rain”
“He is probably lying drunk somewhere. Should I arrange for someone else?”
“It is on that old tree,” says Appa, pointing towards our home. “Only Andruman can reach those.”
The avocado tree stands next to the Sampige tree, the tallest one in our thota - the little green patch in the backyard. The trees were once an imposing presence on the main road. A giant concrete complex now blocks off the view. What hasn’t changed is our Sunday thota tradition.
Sundays in my childhood meant one thing: a visit to thota. Homework, cricket, and everything else made way for the weekly trip. We climbed the guava trees, combed the berry shrubs and looked for our lost pet dog as we navigated the monsoon tracks. Did the mango tree survive the rains? The rains should have surely filled up the well. After all, my gauge said it had rained 80mm last night
.The strap often broke while pulling the slipper out from ankle-deep mud. We could hear the mosquitoes swarm around us through the lashing rains. Ajja walked this path to fetch water from the well for the daily puja, while Doma braved ants to harvest that coffee patch on the side. There was no room for us to complain.
For all of Appa’s enthusiasm, the thota was a dilapidated place. A splattering of coffee bushes, areca nut, and other fruiting trees, it had not yielded to any order. Like most small-towners, our cousins and friends moved out to study in the cities. Our formidable platoon was down now to just three: me, my brother, and Appa. Appa insisted we hold on to the tradition of the Sunday thota visit.
The rains had now rendered the entire place in different hues of green: the dark green of the Colocasia bushes exploding out of every nook, the shadowed green of the thick moss occupying every visible solid surface. Then, there was the shiny green of ripe butter fruits
Long before it became known elsewhere in India as avocado and celebrated as a food fad, ‘butter fruit’ had already won our approval. Like the anthuriums and the bougainvillea, butter fruit saplings popped up in every Coorg backyard.
Amma would scoop up the buttery pulp, blend it with milk, and add just the right amount of sugar to serve the perfect dessert. Having it post-lunch while savoring the rains was an anticipated monsoon ritual.
Amma also packed them into compact cardboard boxes. They would make their way to Mangalore under the seats of obliging state bus drivers. The relatives called Amma on receiving them, always marveling at how it had survived the journey across the ghats without any damage. Butter fruit was our mango - a source of pride and joy which had to be shared.
On Sunday mornings, when we saw the branches bending with ripe butter fruits, we knew it was time for Andruman.
I first met Andruman a couple of years ago. He was about five feet tall with curly hair that bounced as he walked. His stained teeth couldn’t hide the dazzle of his smile. Was he a local? Or did he come in from Kerala? No one seemed to know.
“Make sure they don’t drop down to the ground. They are useless if they break,” Appa said, pointing to the butter fruit trees.
“And check that small tree by the drain too. No payment if you skip that one”
Andruman squinted at the summer sun while locating the trees, hands holding on to his always collapsing pants.
I joined my brother in fetching a pole and some gunny bags from the cowshed for the harvest. By the time we are back, Appa’s stern shoulders are bobbing. Andruman’s laughter, we discover, is infectious.
“Make sure only the ripe ones are plucked,” Appa says as he heads back to handle a client who has shown up at his office.
Andruman is quick to get on the tree. My brother flings the pole at him, while I lay the gunny bags around the ground. My brother shares a tip with Andruman:
“Those ripe ones at the top? They drop with just a tap. Don’t worry, I will catch them,”
“Those huge ones? They will break your wrists if you catch them. Your Appa will file a case against me.”
“I have seen how they catch in cricket matches on TV; this will be easy. Appa will be happy only if we get those big ones.”
Andruman is slapping away the ants already all over him; there is no time to waste. He plucks the fruits on the lower branches and relays them to my brother. By the time I place them into the sack, Andruman has cleaned up the entire branch.
He ventures up higher, getting on his toes to reach the higher edges.
“These look even bigger up close! Don’t drop them, okay?”
My brother nods as he takes position right below.
Andruman thwacks the edge of the branch with the pole. Another thwack. I hear a thudding noise through the foliage. I run for cover under the coffee bushes.
“Shabash!” I hear Andruman say.
I am still shaking off the ants all over me; meanwhile, my brother has already dropped the fruit into the sack.
“There are four more up there,” said my brother pointing to the higher branch.
This partnership continued across seasons. Andruman braved rains, winds, and hangovers to reach corners we thought weren’t possible. My brother took blows on the wrist, body, and once even on his forehead. He still showed up; he had inherited Amma’s grit.
One Sunday, Andruman ventured onto the tallest branch of the tree in the middle of the coffee patch.
“Ayyoo! Irve!”
Andruman complaining about the ants was part of the drill. Only when the pole came dropping next to us did we realize something was wrong. The sun was in our eyes; we only saw his silhouette flailing all over the branches, and ripe fruits falling in his wake. Then, his shirt came flying down. After a while, he somersaulted off the tree and crashed in front of us with a thud.
He rolled over on the ground, bouncing, as he slapped away the ants that seemed to be all over him. We traced the dust trail to find him a good fifty meters away, still slapping around. With gunny bags, banana leaves, or whatever else he could lay his hands on.
Red weaver ants, the roving bandits of the coffee patch, had colonized every inch of the living sphere. The sunshine after the rains had brought them out on a marauding feast. From rival ant colonies to hornet wasps, they devoured everything in sight. Andruman had crashed into one of their giant nests. He didn’t stand a chance.
We were sure we had seen the last of Andruman. Other pickers had deserted for far more trivial reasons. Appa also didn’t have the heart to call upon him in the coming weeks.
Instead, he turned up on his own a few Sundays later. With bouncing hair, collapsing pants, and that dazzling smile. He reminded us of trees yet to be picked before the rains came in, without referring to his earlier misadventure. We had found someone as fanatic about butter fruits as we were. The joi de vivre was back in our lives.
The butter fruit enterprise resumed with full swing the following year. Andruman climbed up trees, just like he did before, unafraid of the ants. My brother caught all the dropping fruit, just like he did before, unafraid of getting hurt. I lost count of the sacks of butter fruit I carried home that year.
While my brother and Andruman cleaned up the tree tops, I spent my time in thota as I had spent most of my boyhood: day-dreaming. Distracted by the crab holes on the floor, ripe guavas which were pink on the inside, or the chickens which had sneaked in from the neighboring coop. When the accolades for the butter fruit bounty came in, I basked in unearned glory, as younger siblings are entitled to do.
Having joined college, my brother did not have the time to catch butter fruits the following years. Appa had more Sunday visitors to tend to, leaving me and Andruman to manage the operation on our own. Of course, there was no way I could admit I had little role to play in the earlier success. Andruman goaded me on:
“Just catch like your brother. It is easy”
Andruman endured more ant bites as I took longer to get into catching position. Ego at stake, I gave it my all for the first few ones.
The pointed ends of the butter fruit often landed on my palms, inflicting a soreness that lasted for days. I realized that leaving a small gap between the cupped palms, almost letting the fruit through while catching, took the sting out of the drop. I dropped a few, but the sack was filling up.
The success buoyed Andruman on to the higher branches.
It was my attention span that let me down more than my catching. My early resolve melting away in the face of the usual thota distractions, the day-dreaming and a million mosquito stings. While Andruman continued to clean up the branches, most of the fruit now lay shattered on the floor around.
Not the one to give up, Andruman improvised when he came home next, a few Sundays later. He tied the sack to the edge of the pole with a jute rope.
“A gentle tap on the fruit should lure it into the sack”
Andruman had sought to bypass my clumsiness with this ingenuity.
Reduced to being a spectator, my mind drifted. This time to the ruckus of the nesting egrets. Hundreds of them descended each year on that particular tree by the pond, turning the leaves white with their droppings. By the time I got back, Andruman was descending from the tree. One hand on the tree, another carrying the sack. His back bent under the weight of butter fruits.
“Is that all this year?” Appa asked. The end of the season was in sight. “We haven’t sent anything across to Mangalore.”
“No sir! One more tree to go. There is bountiful fruit on that one.”
He returned with vigor a couple of Sundays later. After all, his reputation was at stake.
The only problem was that the remaining tree was at the edge of the thota, the branches bending over the fence overlooking the nearby drain. The fruit hadn’t ripened enough to be lured into the sack with just a tap either. Andruman had to get as close as he could to the edge and pull the fruit into our side of the fence.
Holding on to the fruit dropping from branches overhead was hard enough. One had to now factor in trajectories, the sort that weren’t in my mathematics textbooks yet.
“Just catch like your brother, okay? It is easy.”
Faced with the challenge of latching on to projectiles curving in through the foliage, I resorted to the sensible option of ducking and retreating into a corner. I spent the rest of the morning sitting on the concrete slab by the tree, covering my ears each time a butter fruit crashed open next to me.
“He is not good, enough Sir” said an exasperated Andruman. Barely any fruit he plucked had survived the fall. “His brother caught everything.”
“Yes, you should only tell him,” said Appa. “He is also useless when it comes to studying.” His shoulders bobbed with laughter.
I felt the humiliation on my ears and cheeks. Here was Appa, the laughter track of my childhood, who rarely scolded me, mocking me in front of a relative stranger. Little did I know the anger I felt that moment would continue through my adolescence.
I didn’t see Andruman for the rest of the year, but I fumed every time Appa teased me about it. As the youngest child in a joint family, I had long been protected from the outer world. What I was resenting, perhaps, was the slow death of my overprotected childhood.
I hit high school the following year. We now wore pants to school. I had also quietened, no longer the class bully I was all along. After a few indifferent years, I began to enjoy studying again. I won a couple of quiz competitions for my school, big enough to be mentioned in the local papers. I was happy, I even wrote poems that year.
I can’t wait to walk down the thota with Andruman to continue my little arc of redemption. I want to nod yes, when he asks ‘Catch hidibeku’. I want to get in position before the ants get to him and catch all the dropping fruit, even those with wretched trajectories. I want the sacks to fill up again. I want Appa to run out of people to send the butter fruits to.
The summer showers are on time. Arriving with fanfare and whipping up a frenzy as usual. Andruman always reminded us that this was the time for the first crop. But he is nowhere to be seen. Maybe it is busier in the coffee estates these days? Appa insists we wait for him.
Walking to school every morning, I often came across people lying drunk on the road, oblivious to the hustle around. Burdened by generations of despair, they would succumb to an inevitable melancholy. Andruman chose to smile through his precarious life. I suspect Appa valued this more than his butter fruit picking skills.
Early monsoon clouds now lurk in the sky. The branches are bent with ripe butter fruit, few of them already dropping off the trees. If the rains hit with full force in the coming days, we risk losing the whole crop. But we are still waiting for Andruman.
It was characters like Andruman that lit up our small-town life. The everyday mavericks who thrilled us with their skill, befuddled us with their enigma. The twinkle in his eyes, a welcome relief from the dread of the frozen bloodshot eyes one often encountered.
It is a Sunday morning, I walk to the town square. I can see the green tree tops of the Sampige tree, vivid against the menacing gray of the monsoon clouds. Bidis are lighting up, jeeps are idling around, the men are fumbling around. I walk up to the shopkeeper and ask him:
“Did you find Andruman?”
All I get in return is an empty stare.
This piece was written in the cozy confines of Ochre Sky Stories memoir writing workshop as a response to a prompt : “When I was 12.” This piece was further refined by Prem Panicker in the editing workshop he hosts with Amit Varma. It clearly takes a village to get a Substack post out of me.
Beautiful piece, a smooth read like the butter fruit. And as a Kannadiga I loved the sounds of the Kannada words when I said them aloud. A little bit of me is home even as I am reading this in faraway North Sikkim. I read this right after Sanket's piece on losing one's native language and it so underlined the point Sanket was making. Please write more from and about Thota Life in Namma Karnataka.
Wow! This brought back so many core memories. I wish we had a photograph of Andruman!