Coconuts in the Time of Corona

I don't intend to either romanticize or criticize the lockdown. For,  besides limiting our daily Constitutional to the residential complex we live in,  sporting a mask, and having a smaller variety of veggies and fruits, we have coped with it, as we would, with any other day. Moreover, we are fortunate to be where we are, for it is a low-density area, with zero cases of Covid-19. We have more trees than you can count, and more birds, snakes, toads, chameleons, living inside our houses than people.

 

Where we live, you look out from the terrace, and for as far as your eye can see, there is nothing but coconut groves, with trees leaning at a precarious angle from the deadly hurricane of 2011. Interspersed with coconuts, is the sprawl  of cashew trees: short and sturdy, and oppressively green.

Nowadays, despite the lockdown, the coconut harvesting is in full swing, and our otherwise quiet neighborhood has suddenly woken up to the slow rumbling of tractors, hauling golden color coconuts, ready to assuage our summer thirst.

Vinesh Kumar, the gardener's grandson, saunters off on some lazy afternoons, armed with a few of these survival fruits, a menacing sickle, and a sweet smile. The offer is irresistible, a mere ₹25 (40 cents) for sweet coconut water and its whiter than white meat. Vinesh Kumar, with one deft strike of his sickle, pierces the nut, and lo, a fountain of water gushes out. He could very well have been a water diviner. We sit on the porch, leaning on  the cane chairs, thankful for this ambrosia, which is so easily afforded to us, even during the lockdown. After having had our fill of coconut water, we attack  its soft sweet kernel greedily.  It is refreshingly satisfying, this afternoon, pre-siesta indulgence of ours. 

But, I don't intend to  romanticize or criticize the lockdown. I am grateful for the comfort of a home, and its idyllic surroundings, which also help me to sympathize with the homing instincts of the thousands of migrant labourers, headed to their respective villages. With a hungry stomach, swallowing up mile after mile, they trudge on. Yet, how can I even try to step into their shoes, when most of them have been trooping down the hot desolate stretches, barefooted?