FOR A MANGO

Royapettah High Road in Madras the capital of Tamil Nadu a State in South India is a fairly long road connecting the locality known as Royapettah to one end of General Patters Road while the other end stretches up to the neighbouring locality of Mylapore. The road has a mixed variety of buildings ranging from small shops to apartment complexes and shopping centres. It is on Royapettah High Road that Mahalakshmi Apartments is also located.

Mahalakshmi Apartments is a group of five buildings built about thirty years ago which resemble a colony in the guise of a gated community. Each of these five buildings has four floors including the ground floor and sixteen apartments with four flats on each floor. Mahalakshmi Apartments is ensconced with shops on one side and a lane on the other which leads away from Royapettah High Road and ends in a cluster of shacks or a contemporary slum.

The residents of Mahalakshmi Apartments were mostly middle class professionals who had saved their hard earned money to invest in their lifelong dream of having their own residence. Mahalakshmi Apartments has good schools, hospitals, restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies all at a stone’s throw from it.

Mahalakshmi Apartments is rather different from the modern day apartment complexes for it is rather spacious and has broad pathways and a decent sized play area within its walls. As a result the children of the colony as well as other children of the locality gather together during evenings, weekends and throughout the day during summer holidays to frolic and play whatever little children would play; from hopscotch to cricket and more.

The children of Mahalakshmi Apartments can be classified into different groups based on their age. While children below twelve would group together and play hide and seek, hopscotch, kho kho, blindfold and an Indian urban game commonly known as seven stones, the children between twelve to eighteen normally indulged in cricket, football or generally cycling around the complex. Needless to say that the children above eighteen if you can call them children for they behaved like adults lived in a world of their own.

One fine Sunday morning, the younger kids gathered together for a game of Hide and Seek which is popularly called “I Spy”. I am sure all of you must know what this game is all about? However, for the benefit of those who have not had a normal childhood, I must elaborate that the game is usually played with everyone hiding; while only one unfortunate person is given the tough task of seeking out those who are hidden. The Seeker is at times also called the Catcher and is usually selected by what is popularly called “Shaa – Booo – Three” or “Inky; Pinky, Ponkey; Father had a Donkey”.

The Seeker’s role is to find out all the others who are hidden and the person who is found out first by the Seeker then in turn becomes the Seeker, while all the others find different places to hide once again. It was such a game that the Pre- Teen children on Mahalakshmi Apartments were playing that morning and the seeker for the morning was a dumb guy called Suresh who was always the victim as well as the butt of the other boys’ jokes and pranks.

After the boys were given sufficient time to hide themselves, Suresh set out to search for his hidden playmates. His search initially proved futile and he was gradually becoming frustrated at the thought of having to go on searching for his playmates the whole morning, without being able to find them.

After almost half an hour, Suresh finally stumbled upon Ramesh another resident of Mahalakshmi Apartments hidden inside an empty garbage bin which had been recently cleared by the garbage truck which visited the Apartment Complex every morning. Ramesh lived with his parents and elder siblings in flat no. 5 in block A of Mahalakshmi Apartments. He had chosen to hide in the huge empty garbage bin only because it was close to home and he then wouldn’t be late for lunch.

Suresh was overjoyed to have spotted Ramesh hiding in the garbage bin while Ramesh was terribly disappointed since he did not want to become the catcher in the next round. He therefore, “Ssshed” at Suresh to keep quiet and not reveal his hiding place to the others who were hiding while his mind worked overtime to find a way out of his predicament. It suddenly dawned upon Ramesh that he had a huge luscious mango stashed away in his trouser pocket and he therefore took it out and offered it to Suresh, “Here take it but don’t tell the others that you have discovered my hiding place”.

Suresh was a sucker for mangoes and could not resist the temptation offered by Ramesh. “My lips are sealed” he said and quietly accepted the mango while Ramesh went back into the garbage bin to continue hiding as if nothing had happened. Suresh then continued with the game as if he had not yet spotted Ramesh.

Meanwhile, Ramesh’s father Dharmaseelan who had been observing it from the landing of his first floor apartment realised what was happening and called out to Suresh, Hey, young Man; you better come over here”. Dharmaseelan was a greater sucker for mangoes and on seeing Suresh receive a luscious mango from his son decided to threaten Suresh that he would announce his having received a mango from Ramesh and use blackmail tactics to take away the mango from Suresh.

When Suresh appeared on the landing of the first floor as ordered by him, Dharmaseelan quietly took away the mango from Suresh saying, “How can you do this to your friends? I think I’m going to tell all your friends that you accepted a Mango from my son in return for not catching him. Now give me that Mango” he demanded. Suresh was petrified and had no other alternative but to hand over the luscious mango to Dharmaseelan rather than facing the wrath of his friends. He then went downstairs to continue searching for the others who were hidden from his eyes.

Dharmaseelan bit into the mango and enjoyed its fruity taste as he went into his apartment to find his wife accusing their maid servant of having stolen a mango which had been kept in their refrigerator.

Dharmaseelan immediately realised that it was his son Ramesh who had stolen the Mango from the Refrigerator and hid the half eaten Mango in a decorative bowl on the mantel of their living room.

Dharmaseelan was quite antagonistic to the maid named Rani since she had earlier refused to accept his demands of allowing him to grope her and play with her body. He therefore seized the opportunity to tarnish the image of the maid and joined his wife in berating her, saying “Well Rani, who would have thought you would do such a thing? My takes good care of you and treats you like a sister and not her maid. Yet, you betray her and steal from our own home!”

Dharmaseelan found this as a good opportunity to send Rani out of their apartment before she could accuse him of his own misdemeanour while standing on the moral high ground of her having stolen from their family what was not rightfully hers.

The poor maid left the colony weeping, while Dharmaseelan retrieved the Mango from its hiding place and continued to suck on the sweet mango which he had obtained from Suresh and which had originally been stolen by Ramesh from his Mom’s fridge.

Please note that the story is purely fictitious and any resemblance it may bear to instances or individuals is purely coincidental and not deliberate.

Copyright held by Ben Noah Suri. Reproduction without permission is a punishable offence.