Bigger coconuts

Harimohan said, take some sugarcane from our garden back with you when you go. It is very sweet!

I told him the story about growing bigger coconuts that I had heard just the day before. A serious-looking bearded scientist was talking to a group of teachers about the mysteries of nature. The scientist said that there is a story popular with the coconut farmers of Kerala. They think that the coconuts that grow untended in school compounds become bigger than the ones they get with their best farming efforts.

There is also another story about how the coconuts from Tamilnadu are bigger than the ones from Kerala. But, said the scientist, if you look carefully you will see round punch marks near the bottom of the coconut trees in Tamilnadu. The farmers hit the trees with big heavy pestles and frighten the trees into giving bigger fruit. The fruits are a tree's way of reproducing and growing more trees. A coconut tree that is hit hard enough to form marks on it behaves like it is going to die and tries to protect its next generation by working harder to grow bigger coconuts. So that is one way to grow bigger coconuts!

The reason the coconuts are bigger in schools is probably different, said the scientist. Perhaps it is because the trees grow surrounded by the love and happy laughter of hundreds of children running around them. That is the other way to grow bigger coconuts!

I am sure that the sugarcane from your garden is sweeter than any I can buy from the market, I told Harimohan. Won't the gift of attention and love always be returned as the gift of fullness and sweetness by wise mother nature?

(Illustrated by Dinkar)