The "Guay" (Cashew) tree :)

I am starting with better topics now on as promised in my previous post. Better for me is some meaningless, reasonless thing which wont make any sense to the reader. So, in this post I will be writing one such incident which is very close to my heart. I have shared it with many of my friends, and all those heartless terrible people who call themselves my friends have laughed like anything over this little incident. They still make fun of me, not understanding the value of this incident to me :). Ok now, enough of the build up let I narrate the incident to you guys.
It was a few years ago, actually many, but I still remember it as if it was yesterday. It was at the time when I was in my junior college. That was one of the best times with great friends in college and a huge family at home. I was living in my grandmother's house in my native. I was accustomed to the city life till then and would be there in my native only for the summer holidays. I loved this place from my younger days. Summer holidays was when I and my brother had the most fun and it was so because of my native place, my cousins there, my cousins who would arrive for the holidays there, all my relatives, the river, the coconut grove, the mango trees, the cricket matches, the fields and whole days spent in the sun with nothing to care for more than my cousin eating one more mango than myself. It was the most fun place to be in and it still is, though all my cousins have grown up and are busy doing some stupid stuff which they consider to be important. Still when we meet up once in a while there, it is as fun as ever. Yeah so I studied my 2 years of junior college there. Those two years were hell a lot enjoyable because of everything, the college, the people at home, and the events I got to be part with, everything. It will be always fondly remembered by me. But the incident I am going to narrate is not related to any of these things; it’s just an incident which made me feel real special.
Our college is around 6-7 kilometers from our house; we had to walk nearly a kilometer to reach the bus stop and would then board the bus. Our college was a typical junior college as is common in my native, with uniforms and high school like treatment up to some extent. I would take lunch to the college, yeah there weren’t any canteens kind in the college and the lunch from home was much better than any of the hotels nearby. With the lunch, I was given a bottle full of water everyday. I don’t know, I used to eat lunch from the Tiffin, but I never drank the water from the bottle, I would prefer the tap water set up for drinking than the water brought from home, I don’t know why. But the bottle of water remained as is till the end of the day. I remember it was summer season and it would be very hot. Actually it is throughout the year hot in my native except for the rainy days when it pours like anything. If it’s not raining the weather is always hot. When I am returning from the college, after alighting the bus the kilometer of walk would not always be bad, I enjoyed walking the distance. It is a broad mud road with light forest adjacent to the road at one end and on the other end there is a railway track. Mid way to our house on this road there is one cashew tree in the middle of the road. In the forest adjacent to the road this kind of trees are abundant, we can find lot many of such trees, but here in the middle of the road there were shrubs and all, but there was only this one tree present. Each day I would pass by the tree and would notice the mud on the leaves on the lower part of the tree mostly because of some vehicle which would pass on that road once in a while. Most of the times I wouldn’t care for such a thing and those times too I didn’t care. But I would get nice scolding at home for not drinking the water from the bottle. Expecting me to change my ways is a futile effort, but then i didn’t want to get any scolding from home too, so what I used to do is, since i couldn’t water the whole light forest on those hot sunny days, I would empty my water bottle on this dusty tree on those dry afternoons. Those days it used to be very sunny and I used to pour water to it everyday. I felt i was doing something good, though there was another part of me shouting from inside, stop bullshitting yourself you ass you are just emptying a bottle of water to save some scolding at home, maybe that’s what i did. But to think of why did I not just pour out the water anywhere and everywhere but chose the same dusty dry tree to pour the water to day after day. To this another part of my soul would shout, to gloat thinking how good you are. I guess now you understand having these kinds of souls inside me it’s so tough to think of myself as good. They are always out there to show me how mean and meaningless worthless person i am. Anyways I think I am deviating too much from my story. Everyday I would empty my bottle on this tree. So one sunny windless day, i remember I had finished some exam, chemistry maybe, it was sunny and my exam had gone good. I was in a happy mood and as it was an exam day, I hadn’t carried the water bottle. Something unforgettable happened that day as i approached that tree. It was in the afternoon, the sun was shining and there was no wind whatsoever blowing anywhere. As i approached a cashew fruit fell from the tree. It fell right near my feet. Yeah , my initial thoughts were also similar to yours, I thought some squirrel might have been trying to eat it and must have mistakenly dropped it as it was a pretty ripe fruit and the cashew fruit doesn’t fall usually till it over ripens or some squirrel eats it half and drops. I picked the fruit half suspecting it to be eaten by the squirrel. But the fruit was in the perfect shape and also it was the most beautiful cashew fruit I had ever seen. Many of my cousins would climb the tallest cashew tree for this kind of a fruit, but it had fallen right in front of me on a windless squirrel less sunny day. You guys may call it a coincidence, but I consider this as a showing of love by the tree towards me, I really do, to this day I believe that tree fell in love with me and hence it bore a fruit specially for me and after it ripened it dropped it for me on a windless squirrel less sunny day right in front of my feet. That made my day, actually it made more than my day, but the sad part is I don’t like cashew fruits; nevertheless I was, am and will always be overwhelmed by the gesture of that tree. On reaching home I gave the fruit to one of my cousins who too were really amazed by the beauty of the fruit. He must have really liked the fruit. I took the cashew nut to the stove and we roasted it and ate it. This incident made me feel, irrespective of what my inner soul contradicts, that I have done one good thing in my life and one living creature unrelated to me did love me so much to do something so so so special to me. I really loved this incident.
Phew, long story, aint it? After I narrated this story to my friends the first reaction was, I was expecting something sentimental, touching, applause, but no, it was a friend saying man if a branch would have fallen instead of the fruit, we would not have to sit through this whole thing. Can you believe it?