Pineapple thieves

As kids I am sure most of us would have had bicycles. It gave us wings or rather wheels. It gave us freedom and was more than just a toy. It was a passport into exploration and adventure. It took us to different worlds beyond our homes and our streets.

My bicycle diaries happened in Calicut, Kerala. The place where I lived was surrounded by small hills and dense greenery. There was no dearth for cycling expedition trails. Whenever I was back home for the annual holidays, me and my buddies would spend the entire day cycling, fishing, playing cricket, football or seven stones. But the cycling expeditions always were the favorite for us all.

My cycling mates included two guys, both from Calicut who knew a lot of places and always had plans about where we were going to cycle to on any given day.

One day they burst into my compound calling my name and I could see an excitement above normal. I wore my shorts and t-shirt grabbed my cycle - it was a Hero Devil, blue and silver, and left home to our hang out place for discussion. I was itching to know the reason for the excitement of my buddies. It turned out that they had discovered the mother of all expedition routes.

It was a hill maybe 1-2 kilometers away from where we stayed and extremely steep. On the way to this hill were many pineapple patches - an added motive to go. Apparently once up the hill one could see the ocean from there and the ocean from my place was a good 5 kilometers away! It must be one hell of a place we thought.

So we decided to go. We found our way and pedaled furiously up the steep slope. We as a group always had an internal competition as to who always pedaled up even steep slopes so that we could brag about it later. We did it this time too and am not able to recall if we actually pedaled all the way up or not. The path was so steep that I recall, a few years later, the same three of us on a Kinetic Honda were going to the location to have beer on the sly, and the vehicle was struggling to pull our load. That difficult was the trail.

We made it to the top and my the view was definitely worth the effort. The ocean was indeed visible. Nice breeze blowing and all the greenery below us - coconut trees all around and tiled roofs of traditional Kerala houses. Pity, photography was not a craze then. It would have been a post card picture. We spent some time there sitting and chatting and, as young boys always do, explored looking for anything out of the ordinary like maybe snakes and so on. Nothing interesting came up.

So we decided to leave. On the way down we got into a race and I zoomed off. I reached the lowest point on the hill and waited to brag to my buddies about my speed. I waited for some time and they didn't turn up. I cycled back up - today I wonder if in the same situation again, would I ever cycle back up? But back then I did. There was a big turning on the road leading to the hill and as I was turning, straight ahead I saw my friends inside one of the pineapple patches in the aide of the trail. I had totally forgotten about it and zoomed off.

The scene was this. My friends had each about three or four pineapples in their hands holding it against their chest so that they didn't fall. They were facing away from me and in front of them was the pineapple patch owner. I was at a little distance and couldn't hear what was being said. But as I was going to get closer the man slapped one of my friends. All the pineapples he was holding fell to the ground as his hands went up to his cheeks to protect it and also rub away the pain.

I turned around and fled. Shamelessly did it and cycled furiously all the way home non stop and sat in front of the TV. I didn't wait to see what had happened after that.

After some time my friends came by. They carried the pineapples and I noticed they were all green and still unripe and they had also got plastic bags to out them in. I waited for them to say something, they didn't. For a moment I was in a state of confusion if to ask them about the incident or not. I started bragging about my fast pedaling to which they seemed relieved and said they had stopped for the pineapples and so were late. They would have otherwise beat me easily was their contention. I didn't argue or press on. All of us seemed relieved at the moment and I decided to keep it that way.

We buried the pineapples in the backyard to ripen them and a few days later we had them all ripe and sweet and tasty. The incident was never spoken about and buried under the million other childhood incidents. I saw a pineapple picture today and the events came tumbling out a cupboard from somewhere deep inside my mind and I smiled about the warm memories of childhood.

Aside - I also appreciated the pineapple patch owners decision to instill the value of not to steal in the kids, but at the same time handed over the pineapples anyway and also gave them carry bags to take away. That's a man of values and clear thought...