As a kampung kid before. I literally live under the shadows of durian trees and would not eat but the best of the fruits. On reaching adulthood I've had enough and could not be enticed by even the best variety - the best to me being the 'lemak manis' but a little bitterish type which just melts in the mouth. Now I take only one or two 'ulas' (seeds?) and no more. The smell can be a little too strong on the weakening oldfactory.
But as fate would have it, when you least want something it comes aplenty. (The opposite is when you really want something it starts eschewing you!). I bought a little green acre in the 80s to exercise my meek brawns and muscles on by doing battle with the undergrowth, elephant grass, clumps of touch-me-not and what have you. There were some old durian trees on the land which I couldn't care too much about and started planting mango trees, cikus, dukong and mangoesteen.
Today, some mango trees are as tall as the durian trees while others have been attacked by white ants. But all are totally sterile. No friuts as warned by the kampung people before but whose advice I refused to accept. The dukong trees are beginning to show some gratitude by sprouting a few stunted bunches of fuits as do the ciku and mangoesteen trees. But the durian trees, they are old and beginning to wobble but suddenly became very prolific. I'm still wondering why all of a sudden they produce more than I can handle - distributing them to family members, the neighbours and to the local madrasah.
My cars are now so smelly that even the dogs refuse to help clean up the tires. (See pic for the durians and the inset for what doggy used to like doing). Well, there're not enough durians to open up a stall and sell them at 10 sen apiece ( just to collect a fee for the efforts to collect them), but unless I can distribute them fast they are going to open up at the bottom and insult my appetite. Well must go now. to collect more durians for I love searching for them under the trees. It reminds me of the days I used to quarrel with my Auntie everytime a durian falls and we raced each other to fetch it. I always let her win when I see that the fruit which fell was just a small one. But sometimes it turned out to be a huge one and the shouting game began when my claim to the fruit was rejected. We always fought to see who could collect the most durian,to sell them to Ah Chong who bought them at 20 -40 sen apiece.
3 comments:
The battle of the gladiators with your auntie over a claim to the durian reminds me of my childhood days ... during the durian season.
In Bidayuh customs, the boundaries between lands are marked by fruit trees. So since between neighbouring lands are normally family members (like auntie, sister or borther), so in the end we will inherited durian trees and we sometimes also have our ancestors durian trees at different corners of land borders. I normally will have the same race with all my cousins in neighbouring orchard over our ancestors durians. Lets say south border I will race with Cousin A, border to the North with Cousin B. Hehehe
But the best ancestor durian tree that we all love to fight over is one that we call Sepera, betul2 near the river bank. So when the buah jatuh into the river ... we will have the moment of our life, sommersaulting into the river and water polo. I never win at the Battle of The Sepera coz I have deep water phobia (almost drown when I was 7)... cousins pushed the fruit to the deeper part of the river.
Now, I also dah kurang minat eating durian ... maybe sebab dah overdose dulu2
Nampak u punya durian gladiator game lebih hebat, J, ada perang dlm air pulak lagi. Memang hebat, kan? I cite lawan Auntie I je. Dgn jiran-jiran main deception game, especially waktu mlm. Kita pukul tanah dengan pelepah kelapa buat bunyi macam durian gugur. Tuan rumah turun tengok, nothing. Kena dua tiga kali tak mau turun lagi dan durian yg gugur kita punya....
Teringat Lao Tzu penulis The Art of War. Kalau harga durian terus tinggi mungkin berbaloi tulis buku The Art of Winning the Durian War, hehe. Tapi
buah tu dah berlambak-lambak sekarang. Baik tulih buku on How to Win Your Man/Woman.Tentu laku walau pun sudah ada yg tertulis. Bila buku u nak keluar?
Eh, tersilap. Lao Tzu ahli falsafah Taoism, Penulis Art of Wat ialah Sun Tzu. Kalau berjaya tulis buku I nak pakai nama Nortzu, bukan Norzah, hohoho.
Post a Comment