Amma's coconuts

[Kajal]

This happened when I was around my late teen. Then I lived with my parents in the outskirts of an unimportant district of Kerala. My father ran a small tea-shop and my mother helped him in the business. Though I was their only son, I was not much spoilt. I was not bad in my studies and frequently stood first in my class. I was very obedient to my parents. Since they were fairly educated people, they knew well the value of good education and, though it was beyond their means, they were sending me to an English medium school in a nearby town. Looking back, I think that we were a happy family, though poor, and were envied by all our neighbors. Our troubles started when my father fell ill suddenly and died. He was in the habit of drinking toddy once in a while, but of late, probably because of the sudden heavy losses in running the tea-shop due to the appearance of a restaurant across the road, he had started drinking more frequently. Early one evening, his condition got so worse that we had to rush him to a hospital. The doctors said that his condition was very critical. He died after remaining bedridden for some weeks. After his death, my mother gathered herself together very quickly and tried to run our tea-shop alone. But she soon found out that she could not do it on her own.