All for a mango!

by Joseph Anthony

It was a glorious morning. The entire tea field was suffused with the brilliant light of the rising sun. The field was called the Bungalow Malai although it had an official identification as No. 8 Field. The workers called it Bungalow Malai because the Superintendent's bungalow was in this field.

It was around 7.30. The Superintendent was in the office discussing some labour problems with a Union Representative who had come from the town. Since the Superintendent had to visit his Head Office that day he allotted the morning period for discussion.

Boundary

There were more than three different Labour Unions on the estate and always there were labour problems which reflected on the bed management of the Superintendent. He adopted a harsh attitude towards his workers and they hated him. He always boasted that he was a scion of an Aristocratic Kandyan family.

Most of the days he was out of the estate attending Labour Office or Labour Tribunals. On such days the staff had a field day.

His frequent absence from the estate resulted in the deterioration of the management in all areas and the estate was running at a loss.

The estate office was just below the Superintendent's bungalow, divided by a 'dead' drain. The drain was the boundary of the bungalow land. But the wife of the Superintendent claimed a mango tree standing in the tea field area, as that belonged to the bungalow and people never plucked mangoes so as to avoid unnecessary problems cropping up.

The Superintendent's wife was an arrogant type of person who showed no mercy to her employees in the bungalow similar to her husband and her avarice was limitless.

Tea plucker Ponnamma was a widow with three children. Her husband had died long ago falling from a kitul tree when he climbed to tap toddy. She was a regular and a hard worker. When she was plucking tea leaves a ripen mango fell just in front of her. She quickly picked it up and started eating. That was noticed by two eagle eyes from the bungalow. Yes, it was the Superintendent's wife watching the workers from within the bungalow whether they plucked mangoes. She immediately contacted her husband over the phone and complained about a woman eating a mango. The Superintendents, widely known to be under a petti-coat government, summoned the Kangany and ordered him to send the woman who ate a mango while working.

Ponnamma threw the half eaten fruit and appeared before the Superintendent. She was in panic.

The Superintendent berated her for eating a mango which belonged to the bungalow and while working. "No work today and you can go home" he thundered. She grovelled before her boss begging his pardon but he was adamant that she should leave. Now that her subsistence depended upon her meagre income and losing a day's work was unbearable to her. This being a trivial matter the Union man should have interfered but he kept mum. The Superintendent also warned the Kangany that he will be demoted if he failed to supervise properly.

Silence

Ponnamma took her plucking basket and left the field while her fellow workers were looking at her sadly and at the same time cursing the Superintendent in silence. On her way to her line room Ponnamma stopped in front of the Mariamman Kovil, supplicated before the goddess with raised arms and prayed for justice.

"I want that woman punished" she muttered and angrily stepped towards her line room.

About six weeks passed and one morning the wife of the Superintendent complained of a severe pain in her stomach. She was taken to hospital and the doctor attending on her advised the Superintendent to take her immediately to the General Hospital or to any reputed private hospital. She was admitted to a private hospital.

After a thorough check up she was found to be having a cancer. It was a great shock to both and the Superintendent tried his best to cure her disease but in vain. After about three months in hospital she breathed her last.

Doom

Ponnamma hearing the news rushed to the kovil. There clad in a white saree she sat in front of the goddess, her lips moving in a sort of trance.

Was she expressing her gratitude to the goddess for punishing her tormentor, so severely? Or was she cursing her self for bringing such a doom on a woman who deprived her the pleasure of enjoying a mango? Nobody knows. But this astonishing news, seeped through the estate into her ears....

When the doctors did the post mortem, before handing over the lady's body they had found that the tumour in her stomach was exactly in the shape of a large mango!