The Fate of a Mango Tree

When I shifted into this single storey terrace house ten years ago, I assumed that the mango tree in front of my house was shared by me and the neighbour on my right because the tree stood in front of both our houses.

Over the years, the tree had borne abundant fruits which were plucked and enjoyed by most of the neighbours in the vicinity. Even passersby stopped to relish the taste of this fruit. Once even a teenaged passerby stopped her car in front of my gate and asked permission to have a few mangoes. Most neighbours were not so courteous. They carried their own sticks to pluck the mangoes whenever they wanted to eat it raw or make a pickle.

I, on the other hand, would wait for the fruits to grow big and ripen on the tree and then fall off on their own. This was when the flesh of the fruit would be juicy and sweet. As expected, I seldom had a chance to eat these ‘juicy golden nuggets’ as I termed them, as most of the fruits would have been plucked when they were still young and sour.

Annually, during the hot season, the tree would shed its leaves. I would sometimes sweep the leaves but my neighbour two doors away on the right took it upon himself to sweep the leaves regularly. Maybe he did so because he often parked his car under the shade of this tree. Maybe he did so because he had been staying in the area even before I shifted here and that is what he had been doing all along. In fact, he also took it upon himself to prune the tree when the leaves and branches were getting too massive.

The mango tree was actually planted by the mother of my immediate neighbour on the left. About sixteen years ago when the old lady shifted into the house next door, she had bought two different species of young mango plants. One plant which would eventually bear big eight-inch long mangoes she planted in front of her house. The other was this tree which bore ‘golden nuggets’. Her son cut their mango tree after she passed away about two years ago because he was fed up with people stealing the fruits.

Today the other tree which was planted outside my house met with the same fate. My immediate right neighbour whom I have never seen sweeping the leaves or plucking the fruit, decided that the tree should be felled. So he ordered his worker to cut the twigs, the branches and the trunk of the tree.

My one regret is that I did not take a photograph of the tree in its heyday, when it was full of leaves, when it was flowering and when it was laden with fruits!