Jack Fruit Seller

 Jack Fruit Seller 

He is the craftiest of all and worse than an average politician.

I did not buy anything from him after initial investigations.

My involvement with him was related to my Fruit Vendor whom I knew for a very long time.

He undercuts the other guy without paying anything to the Municipality.

The above guy found this place as convenient as to sell his jack fruits.

He did not have a stall but ventured deliberately without paying taxes to the Municipality.

 

I did my home work before confronting him.

His premises were based on

We love jack fruits

Our women in the cities or suburbs do not want to touch the latex of this fruit.

It is a special skill which I learned from my school days.

 

Delicacy is "Pani Waraka"  or sweet Jack Fruit.

It is hard to find a good fruit bearing tree nowadays, vandalized by the Ma Ra regime.

What he was selling was not the real Sweet Jack fruit but was an inferior variety.

He does not sell it as a fruit.

He removes the endocarph of the fruit.

In the morning it is relatively cheap.

Once has has collected the daily income, he jacks up the price after 2PM.

This is the time when the University guys do their daily vegetable shopping.  

 

I call him a mafiosi guy for this tactics.

 

It was OK but he started bringing other fruit varieties to undercut the established fruit vendor.

I once warned him and said I am going to report to the University, if he does any harm to my fruit vendor.

 

I did no have any dealing with him, afterwards.

He owns a lorry, later I discovered.

My Favorite Fruit Seller

My Favorite Fruit Seller

This guy I knew him from my University days.

He has a lovely collection of fruits.

 

He keeps a number of Durian for me when the season comes.

Every week he has a trip to other vendors and buy them in bulk.

 

My favorite banana was Ambhan.

 

Well, I miss them all but if I remained there my money was not enough to maintain with cost of living gone up by 300%.

This Ranil guy is worse than that Jewish guy, Shylock.

Our guys are stuck without an annual salary increment going par with inflation and these vendors cannot jack up the prices, for the regular uses.

They are hit by both sides.

 

Purchase side and the selling side.

On second thought, I feel like making a book illustrating these silent guys who contribute to our economy and never get a chance to ses his or her MP.

"Little Guys That Make Me Live in Ceylon'" is a tentative Title, since I have produced a book detailing (including Mana Wadu in my book) other relatively close guys.

 

The guy lends me his pair of spikes for an important sports meet.

He tops the list.

He was the last one whom, I met at the airport.

He is a nature lover and a globe trotter.

I do not know where he is now.

 

I think he does not believe in Rebirth and wants to cover the globe in one go.

I never question his religious beliefs, who was born as Buddhist.

 

His grandfather was the richest guy in my village. 

He left nothing for him except a useless wood paneled boutique which he showed me once.

He has his own self-made beautiful house.

He did it himself from bricks to mortar.

 

I tried to wean him off building houses at this age past 70 but does not.

His wife asked me to tell him off.

He is older than me.

 

I saved him from a female Professor of Medicine,

She treated him for a non existing heart illness.

 

Self willed guy a blessing to this country.

 

Yes, I miss him and the fruit vendor.

His wife was a lawyer who had been very helpful when I had my own minor inconsistencies (antagonizing politicians).

By the way, he is not a fruit vendor but a retired trained science teacher.

Like me he likes practical physics.

Elephant Bath

 Elephant Bath

Elephant bath, it was where everybody who visits Kandy go to see elephant when it is not the Perehara season.

Botanical garden and Elephant bath were two landmarks of visit to the city.

Now no more thanks to development projects like Polgolla dam to divert water to the dry zone.

I must address an issue that this dam caused after its opening. I must retell this story for the present engineers to understand the need to release water downstream regularly to avoid similar episodes.

The downstream water spilled over the dam was not enough to cover the river bed. Soon water pools begin to form and the mosquitoes started breading in them. For the first time we started detecting Malaria in Kandy.

Any place under 4500 feet Malaria mosquito can breed. Then water samples collected with mosquito larvae confirmed that Malaria mosquito was breeding in Kandy for the first time.

Now the remedy was to spray DDT on the river bed. This was actually the consolidation phase of Malaria campaign and we prematurely relaxed spraying with the recommendation of the WHO.

Story circulating at that time was that the resident Malaria Campaign Officer who was  a foreigner, fearing his job would be axed, if we successfully completed the campaign gave wrong signal to withdraw spraying prematurely.

In any case by the time of the opening of the Polgolla Dam in 1976, the malaria had spread all over and Kandy was relatively immune.

Now spraying the river bed was no feasible with people using it for bathing.

Our public officers gave the Mahaweli an order to intermittently release the water giving them correct instruction considering the life cycle of the Malaria larvae, so that the larvae get destroyed before they become mature mosquitoes. This was a simple remedy but was very effective to arrest malaria spread in Kandy.

I do not think they still practice this simple remedy. One visit to Earl’s Reagent Hotel is enough to witness whether they are practising common sense.

Now it was only yesterday I went to Kandy to buy something double sided sticker to stick the Telephone box to the wall. I was going from one corner of the city to the other corner  to find the same without any success. At one point the cross road and the main were blocked and people were getting ready (some Bank organising the thing) a procession.

Very young elephant with soaring sun beating down was covered with a decorated overcoat and was kept waiting till the men and the retinue got ready.    This poor animal while baking himself in the sun was trying to lift foot/feet in rotation, giving some respite to the burning feet (it was like the restless feet of old people who suffer from a similar burning but less distressful to the owner).

It was a pathetic sight to watch and mahout was nonetheless not bothered about the young animals welfare. They are only exhibits without real life away from the jungle habitat. Mind you, I am one who is totally against domesticating these majestic creatures.

Ill treatment is totally unacceptable.

Not only they have lost a place for bathing they have lost all sense of well being under human care in this Buddhist country. These majestic animals love water and water is a sport for them and that is how they keep them cool under a thick skin. With global warming and even in Kandy temperature going above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, they have no comfort zone.

It is criminal.

Not only humans even animals need water for survival and that water has to be good for drinking.

Which is not true today.

Misdirected Power

Taking a Young Guy from his Mother as a Soldier to fight a raging war or in to priesthood to preach nonsensical Wisdom or making him become a divisive Politician is / are all manifestation/s of brute Power in our modern system.

Showing the guy to become a self assured craftsman (includes computer literacy) is a gift of mankind.

Some of the ideas originated from Dhammapada but the political idea is my own.

 

I try not to be a political animal.

 

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