Footloose Days

My father's place near Honavar has many cashew trees around it. One of them was my childhood favourite because it had horizontal branches, which was ideal to sit and play the bus game. I would alternately be a passenger and the conductor, enjoying the juicy cashew fruit, if I spotted one. And we would hunt for the fallen cashew seeds among the dry leaves and promptly roast them among embers in the evening. Oh, the taste of smoky cashews is something! 

Maybe the other reason for that tree to be special was that it signalled the beginning of the end of my long journey from home to grandmother's. At the foot of the sprawling tree was the gravelly slope and if you let yourself loose, you would land at my grandmother's gate. My summer officially began that way. 

So I had taken the tree for granted until one summer I was told that it was out of bounds. I must've been around nine. I didn't understand. The tree was very much there! Then I came to know that it was never ours. It was public property and that year, local officials had made it clear to everyone that they were the owners of it. So I was not to pluck any fruit and if I found any seeds, I was to let them be unless I wanted to be carried away by the official stooges. Of course I didn't. 

The fear lasted only for a few days. Because the same cousins who told me scary stories about the stooges also told me they weren't around all the time, especially in the noon. So I lied to my grandma and followed the boys to the tree one afternoon, albeit with some misgivings. I looked as far as I could and there was nobody there. So things went back to normal for me and I was soon busy chatting and sifting through the leaves. The dry leaves drown out all other noise but something made me look up after a while. And there was this guy, walking stealthily towards me, just a couple of feet away. He stretched his hand when I saw him and my limbs froze. Then the instincts took over and I screamed and ran for my life. Of course the slope saved me but I don't think I've ever run faster. I saw that man's gleeful look in my nightmares for some time. 

The tree is still there but it wasn't the same anymore. When I look at it now, I only wonder what would've been had that man caught me. Would he have beaten me more or my parents?