My parents have a big garden that houses varieties of plant and animal lifeforms including five coconut trees. These lofty trees tower over different corners of my parents’ property, as if standing guard over the premises. Their smooth slender trunks are completely free of leaves, right until the very top, where swishing branches of long needle leaves make them look like space creatures with tendrils silhouetted against the cloudless blue sky. Each of them bears clusters of coconuts waiting patiently to be plucked.
During my last visit, my mum and dad wanted me to have plenty of delicious fresh coconut water, as they believe it is good for my health. We gazed up at the coconuts, imagining drinking the sweet juice inside them. The problem was that they are about sixty feet up and we are all under six feet tall. So, it was a small challenge how to get at the coconuts. Luckily my dad had a cunning plan. He phoned up his coconut man, the one who would come and climb the trees and pick the coconuts for us.
The coconut man came the next morning. He called from the front of our property to open the gate. Because he is blessed with a mouth that emits such a booming sound whenever he opens it, he doesn’t need to use the gate bell provided. He is about middle aged with a lanky build and lean muscles. He was wearing shorts and a white sleeveless vest which highlighted his heavily tanned skin. He climbs coconut trees and cuts coconuts for a living. His full gear is a motorized bicycle which carries a few strong ropes and a box of tools fitted in front of the handle bar. Just with those, he makes all the coconuts he touches shiver with fear.
As soon as he saw my dad, he started talking and immediately got ready to do his job. While engaging in a monologue, he wrapped the coconut tree with his special rope, looped another around himself, attached a few tools on his waist band and started climbing the tree. I was amazed to observe that his voice never dipped – not even momentarily during the climb. His vocal chords produced a generous vibration of waves that hit our ear drums as well as those of our neighbours and all the nearby stray dogs loud and clear even when he was at the top of the coconut tree about sixty feet up. He talked about the medicinal properties of coconut water, and in the same breath about his wife, his sons and his monastery back in his birth place in a village. There must have been some connection between these different topics somewhere. My dad commiserated and agreed at the appropriate places. The dogs listening on the street near our front wall also howled a few times in agreement.
When he started climbing the first coconut tree, the crows that live there started cawing. The first crow called out to their mates. Soon, a whole group of crows were circling the coconut man screeching their combat ready cry. ‘Enemy! Enemy!’
But the coconut man didn’t even seem to notice them. He was in full swing of his non-stop monologue when he expertly cut a bunch of coconuts, attached it to his hook and lowered it to the ground. He also chopped a few dry branches and dropped them, narrowly missing the army of crows who now thought it better to put some distance between themselves and the coconut man. By now, he had diverted his speech to the topic of local remedies to cure cold, cancer and other ailments. He continued to the next four coconut trees while still delivering to the whole neighbourhood different topics of one-sided discussion. Every so often, my dad chimed in with “Is that so?” “You must be very proud of that” “That’s good, isn’t it?” while I watched this coconut man climb the trees with the effortlessness of a monkey.
The coconut man’s deep ringing monologue was enhanced by the cawing of crows who thought their homes were in danger, chattering of sparrows who were always quarrelling in the bushes, the bored cooing of cuckoos in other trees, the moaning of wood pigeons, the incessant meowing of the tom cat from next door and the screeching of a lone yellow bird that had been pecking at our windows for the last three days. This was occasionally joined in by the inexplicable long drawn out howling of some dogs on the street. Nevertheless, the voice of the coconut man beat them all hands down.
While moving on to the topic of his diverse experience in his career as a coconut man, he brought down the last of the coconuts that were ripe for drinking and prepared some for us so that we could just put a straw in and drink the juice. When everything was done, my dad paid him 20,000 kyats, the equivalent of about $20. That would be enough to pay for food for his family that day and possibly a bit leftover to save or to add to the donation to his birthplace monastery. He thanked my dad profusely and took his bicycle and left, still talking till the very last minute just before our iron gate clanged shut.
The circling crows had now thought it safe to return to their nests in the coconut trees. The sparrows had come out of the bushes still engaging in their unfinished quarrelling. The yellow bird continued to peck at its own reflection in the windows: it couldn’t care less about what was happening to everyone else. The dogs had switched from howling to barking now that the pressure on their hearing had eased off. The cat had been reunited with his girlfriend. The world had come back to normality as my mum, my dad and I sat down to drink our freshly harvested coconut water, ignoring the cacophony around us.
I closed my eyes and relished the sweet and slightly salty taste of the coconut water. Heaven!