It was a time of economic crisis. The country was not yet independent but there was an air of freedom in the streets where ladies and gentlemen were talking about the upcoming public rallies. I was barely 6 years old and this political thingy was already biting its share into me, penetrating my soul.

I was running full clad in my short pants and shirt – mind you those were the days when t-shirts were rare – but I had no sandals. I left them under the tamarind tree, a huge widely spread and pretty looking tree that offered much fresh air and shades against that burning sun on the tropical Island of Mauritius.

In 1966, Mauritius was still a British dependency but the fantastic thing about this year was the display of colorful banners and posters around the street corners. The cars – almost all painted black or white – were adorned with the red flags of the Labor Party which formed an alliance with the Muslim party called the Muslim Action Committee (CAM) of Abdul Razak Mohamed. My town was heavily painted in blue with the war cry ‘Cock Power’ written on the walls.

While the elders were fighting over their choices, I had made mine and nothing could stop me from getting what I wanted that evening. My neighbor’s son Subratty was with me and we planned to take on the Asam Jawa tree. We were hungry and since in those days fruits were scarce in Mauritius, the kids had little choices in Port Louis, the capital city.

Like any other small cities in the world, Port-Louis had no real garden of its own and no orchards – which we can see in parts of big cities in big countries like Malaysia. Mauritius is barely the size of Singapore while Port Louis is as big as down town Penang. I had to rely on the best Asam Jawa fruits that I have ever tasted in my life and the tree was right in front of me yet it was unreachable.

Subratty threw his slipper to try knock down one of the tamarind pod that was right on top of us. He tried a dozen of times and had to give up when his slipper finally refused to come down. It got stuck on a branch of the tree. We had no sticks to bring it down thus we resorted to pebbles and stones and threw them in the air, aiming at the slipper rather than the Tamarind fruit.

After a while we got tired and decided to go back to our respective homes to get some water to drink but we promised we will be back with sticks long enough to help us get both the tamarind fruits and the Subratty’s slipper from the tree.

While I was the one doing the thinking, Subratty was usually the one who was more enterprising and was for him to bring the sticks which I suggested earlier. He had with him a fishing rod which was his father’s.

We were six year olds, going to the same school but not really friends to the end, and we were there attempting at getting the tamarind to fall for us to enjoy its deliciousness. Subratty’s slipper gave us additional bread on the bench to mend with but this time, I had a stool with me. I took it from my other neighbor’s house but not without our little friend of 5 following us.

He was the nephew of a well known gangster in town but since the gangster always supported me when I was playing with the kids on the streets, I allowed his nephew to follow us. The stool belonged to an old man. Francis was his name. He was never against what we kids were doing on the streets. He passed his wooden stool to me saying return it when you are done with it. Sure I would return it but when I have Subratty and the gangster kiddo with me, there were chances that the wooden stool ends up under the bridge that was next to the huge tamarind tree.

It was not long for the slipper to fall and for the tamarind to fall too, not one tamarind pod but a few though not all of them were ripe. It was my delicacy so whether it was ripe or not I had to eat them and eat them deliciously with some salt which was in my pocket. Yeah, my left pocket was full of salt while my right pocket was stacked with ‘Marie’ biscuits.

We ran to the bridge with the breeze hitting my face. It was cooling under the tamarind tree during the evenings. This is where my freedom was suddenly cut in full flight. A car had suddenly pulled behind us and the driver horning like crazy. When I turned back, I saw my grandfather’s car. He was clad in white and was sitting behind, my uncle was driving.

After explaining what I was doing outside in the streets with the boys, my grandpa said I should go home because it was getting late. However it was my uncle who saved the day when he got out of the car and plucked a strange looking fruit from a tree that grew so tall its branches covered the bridge of the old Serang Road.

This was the name of the road where I lived in 1966 and I bet it has nothing to do with Bahasa Malaysia. In BM, serang means attack and when I look back in time I wonder whether the Serang Road meant Attack Road?

Nevertheless, my uncle suggested that I will follow him on Sunday to the big rally in Port Louis. There were to have two rallies in the city and both only a few hundred meters away from each other. The Reds were to demonstrate at the Port area near the lorry depot while the Blues representing the Democratic Party of Mauritius (PMSD) were to meet at the Champs De Mars, one of the oldest race courses in southern Africa.

Reaching me with his hand, my uncle was putting the strange looking fruit in my mouth after biting half of it. I tasted it, it was so nice and I asked him what it was called. He replied ‘Chicken Poop’, that was the name!

From then on, my days were made of Asam Jawa and Chicken Poop but the Chicken Poop was extremely rare and until today I do not know the real name of that fruit. What I remember was that it was so much fun to pick the asam jawa from the large tree and to play in the streets without slipper or sandal.

It is rare nowadays to see children in big cities playing with friends and plucking tropical fruits from trees. They are mostly busy building hotels and cities on their computers with Simm City or killing the Arabs and gangsters with guns in their computer games!

To be continued…

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