“More so if you manage to do so from the neighbor’s groove.”
“That’s not true, for all kids love to flick a fruit or two but not every parent owns plantations, and so it’s a necessary evil for children to trespass on the sly,” he said before he picked up the threads of his tale. “But, for want of care, Chandu’s garden, spread over a larger area, didn’t measure up to mine in a tiny space, and I suspect that he turned green seeing my garden ever so green. That’s what might’ve driven him to ravage my prized plot when our family was away for a day; how shocking was that sight, like seeing my near and dear ones perish on the road, not once but twice. But unlike life and death that lie in the hands of fate, to relay the garden or not was in the realms of my choice, and I decided to forego the pleasure of gardening not wanting to undergo the possible trauma of Chandu’s future mischief. So I took to collecting the cinema handbills heralding the release of new movies, how the distributor used to shoo us away as we ran after the jatka
for more of the same, and the way that hobby too ended would only illustrate how fate can deny one even the innocent pleasures of life. Before I tell you about it, I better talk about my parents, why for you to have a better feel of my fate, you need to have an idea about their life as well. Better I show you their photograph to let you correlate their persona with their philosophy.”