The Death of Servant Maid (standard:non fiction, 1490 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Jul 28 2013	Views/Reads: 2819/2032	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The death of servant maid brought lot of memories in the mind of Juggernaut.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


bathes, rests and watch TV, after dinner she goes home, that was her 

routine for several years after Lakshmi, her granddaughter took over 

her job. 

Demudu was a very fair skinned small woman which was unusual 

for a person belongs to a caste in Hindu hierarchy that made living 

for centuries in fermenting Toddy palm tree sap into a cheap alcoholic 

drink called kallu, a poor's man drink. She lived few miles walk from 

Juggernaut's house in a mud house with thatched roof in an 

impoverished area. Toddy trees grow everywhere in South India with its 

circular crown of thick waxy leaves at the top of 40 to 90 feet long 

strong fibrous trunk. For centuries, sun-dried Toddy palm leaves were 

used as thatching material to build roofs over mud houses. Toddy tree 

trunk were sliced vertically and cut into beams to support slant 

bamboo roof structure on which dried Toddy tree leaves were fastened 

in layers with coconut fibers to facilitate rainwater runoff. The 

natural wax coating on dried leaves acts like water repellent paint 

coating.  Fresh cow dung plastered on mud walls when dried gives 

smooth finish to the exterior and interior mud walls. The small mud 

houses with low thatched roofs built close to each other in a row 

looks more like series of chicken coops from a distance. 

When Juggernaut growing up, Demudu's maternal uncle Appanna 

visited often to climb 60 foot coconut trees in Juggernaut's backyard 

to pluck the coconuts. He made living harvesting coconuts from trees 

in peoples' yard. Using a twisted rope made from coconut fiber as a 

safety harness, he climbs the tree more like a monkey climbing a tree 

except he wore a safety rope harness that loops around his waist and 

the tree, and another small loop made up of rope around his feet.  At 

the start, he stands at the base of the tree and jumps with his both 

feet up holding the tree, the rope ring keeps the feet together close 

to the tree trunk for a grip. The large loop that goes around his 

waist and the trunk holds his body at a distance to the trunk; he 

pushes himself up on the tree trunk holding the loop with both his 

hands. Looking from the ground level, the alternate foot and hand 

movements to push himself up looks easy and effortless. The skin on 

his feet developed several calluses from constantly rubbing against 

rough tree trunk while climbing coconut trees. 

On reaching the tree crown, he sat comfortably on top of the 

tree and with his bare foot kicked the bunch to drop the coconuts to 

the ground. He carried a small sickle on his back to use it if 

necessary to pluck individual nuts.  The descent was much faster and 

easy. On descent to the ground, juggernaut used to rush to Appanna to 

ask how the ground looks from top of the tall tree but his answers 

were always clumsy because of his speech impediment. 

Few coconuts were left on the tree purposefully to ripe and 

dry to drop to the ground naturally.  During the natural drying 

process on the tree, the coconut milk with all it oil was absorbed 

into the flesh and turns into copra.  Coconut oil was extracted from 

dry copra not from fresh coconut flesh. Juggernaut's mother kept dried 

coconuts fell from the trees to save them for oil extraction at a 

local oil mill. 

Juggernaut was always looked forward for Appanna's visits 

since his visits brought exciting projects like cutting down low 

branches from Neem, soap nut or Yellow Nerium trees in the backyard. 

Juggernaut loved to hang around him during his visits to watch his 

actions closely. Appanna wore practically nothing except a short 

coarse cotton cloth wrapped around his waist exposing his body above 

and below his waist line.  Looking back remembering him, Appanna's 

face resembled that of an Australian aborigine; very dark with large 

curly hair and prominent facial features. On the contrary, his wife 

was slender and delicate, a brown skinned woman with fine facial 

features and so were her three daughters. On occasions Appanna's 

children visited Juggernaut's home to do light chores around the house 

and play with Juggernaut.  Some visitors often confused Appanna's 

daughters as Juggernaut's sisters. 

Members of the Demudu's caste also made living selling young 

tender toddy palm nuts for its sweet juicy jelly seed sockets. 

Purplish black Toddy nuts slightly twice the size of a baseball hang 

in bunches like coconuts from tall toddy palm trees as high as 90 

feet. The mature nuts are planted in the ground to harvest the root 

sprouts as they emerge.  The tender root sprouts 8 to 12 inches long 

are thick at the base and tappers into a narrow end more like 

carrots.  On boiling in salted water, the brown skin peels off 

exposing whitish yellow starchy roots with strong Toddy flavor to eat. 

The taste is delicately sweet with slightly bitter after taste. 

Freshly harvested bundles of Toddy root sprouts were sold in daily 

market in season. 

On few occasions, Juggernaut accompanied his father to 

Demudu's hut to place peahen eggs in her chicken coop to allow her 

regular hens to hatch peahen eggs. This idea of Juggernaut's father 

never worked out for some reason; the chicken hens separated the 

peahen eggs from their own eggs for incubation; the nature might have 

played its role. Except for those few occasions to place peahen eggs 

in her chicken coop, Juggernaut since then never had the opportunity 

to visit Demudu at her home. Thought it was decades ago, Juggernaut 

still remembers the strong smell of fresh cow dung plaster emanating 

from Demudu's mud house. 

Though Demudu passed away, she left many memories in the mind 

of Juggernaut growing up watching her comings and goings and his uncle 

Appanna's visits to kick the coconuts from the tall trees in the 

backyard that fell to the ground making big thumping noises in 

succession with each drop of the nut. Now, Juggernaut's mother drops 

the coconuts from the trees herself with a long stick since the new 

hybrid coconut trees were very short much close to the ground. People 

of the caste Demudu belongs now choose any trade for living since 

making toddy wine for sale was outlawed and the urban sprawl resulted 

in uprooting Toddy trees altogether from the landscape. Due to 

scarcity, Toddy fruit nut jelly and root sprouts were now sold at a 

premier price as specialty and not as poor man's cheap food. 


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