Tamarind by Mohit Manohar

We loved the taste of tamarind. A shop not far from our school in Bihar, India, sold pulpy tamarind candies. They were embedded with sugar crystals and coated with black pepper. The sweetness cut into the sourness and left a hint of spice on the tongue. If you mixed sugar and pepper, you wouldn’t get anything exciting. The magic element was tamarind.

It was a pleasant afternoon, and on occasions a cool breeze blew, carrying the smell of rain. All the elders had fallen asleep. Pintu was able to sneak out from his house and I from mine. We played catch-catch and ran through the paddy fields. In the blue above were a few white clouds, a few grey clouds. A few black crows. The cows had retired to the shades of the trees and looked at us, unamused. Even the hungry stray dogs, with skin that rippled over their ribs, did not bother following us. They found shaded spots to sit and wagged their tongues at the world. 

At the far end of the paddy field, where the dirt path faded and tall bamboo shoots grew, there was a vast and leafy tamarind tree. We stood underneath the tree and saw ripe tamarinds on its topmost branches. We tried climbing the tree, but the trunk had no foothold. Our toes kept slipping and we slid to the ground. We laughed and dusted ourselves. 

Pintu noticed that whenever the breeze grew into a wind, the bamboo shoots nearby arched towards the tree. We could climb a bamboo shoot and reach the upper branches of the tamarind tree. 

Pintu climbed the bamboo shoot with ease. The insides of his feet found support on bamboo’s nodes: white ridges that grew at regular intervals. His weight arched the bamboo even further and I feared the stem might snap. But the bamboo curved gracefully and carried him to an upper branch of the tamarind tree, laden with fruits.

Come up! said Pintu. What’re you waiting for?

I hesitated. I wasn’t so sure. But then I saw Pintu pluck a tamarind pod and crack open its brown husk. He licked the tangy pulp inside and smacked his lips.  

It’s really good, he shouted.  

I waited no further. I climbed the bamboo as quickly as I could—I didn’t want Pintu to grab all of the bigger tamarinds. The bamboo bent with my weight and the tamarind tree’s branch shook upon receiving me. Pintu, however, was secure in his place and undisturbed by my arrival. He had wrapped his legs tightly around the branch and his fingers were sticky with pulp.

You look like a monkey, I told him.

You’re a monkey, he returned.

We sat on the branch and ate as many tamarinds as we could until our stomachs made bubbling sounds. Pintu farted, and an acidic odor wafted about. I waved my hands to dispel the smell. 

You think your fart smells like roses? he asked me.

Want to smell it? I asked. 

I had no idea how long were up on the tamarind tree or how much time we had spent playing catch-catch. I feared, however, that our families would be waking up from their naps. We would be in trouble if they noticed that we were missing.

We should go back, I told Pintu.

In a bit, he said, plucking another tamarind pod from a nearby branch.

I was amazed at how many tamarinds he could eat.

Does the inside of your mouth not itch? I asked him.

Itch?

I want to scratch my tongue when I eat too many tamarinds, I said. The sides of my mouth itch. 

Pintu laughed. You’re a strange person, he said. 

A few branches below, I saw a nest with blue eggs looking like gemstones. 

Which bird lays blue eggs? I asked Pintu.

Mynah, he said. Why?

I gestured towards the nest.

We stared at the nest in silence. I knew that Pintu was thinking the same thing as I—we should steal the eggs. But there was no obvious path to the nest. The bigger branches that could take our weight were just a little out of our reach.

Not to worry, said Pintu. Watch me.

He grabbed a thin branch nearby for support and slid from the one on which we were sitting, landing lightly on a branch below. I looked at him as he tried to figure out what to do next. But just as he was looking about, Pintu’s feet slipped from the branch on which he had a tentative foothold, and with a cry he vanished from my sight, the branches and leaves shaking violently as he fell.

Pintu! Pintu! I shouted.

I couldn’t see him through the moving branches and the leaves.

Pintu! I shouted again. Say something!

He did not reply.

Pintu!

No one was around. Not even the stray dogs had bothered following us. I began to shiver uncontrollably and worried I might fall. I gripped the branch tightly and kept calling my friend’s name.

When the branches stopped shaking, I could finally see through the netted space left by the unmoving leaves. My friend was lying face down on the ground. 

Pintu! Pintu! I shouted. Somebody help! 

I also saw, next to Pintu, the mynah’s nest. The blue eggs had all smashed. A mynah hopped around Pintu, crying out in anger and sorrow. 

Mohit Manohar’s short stories have appeared in Best Debut Short Stories, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Nimrod. He has received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize and Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Born and raised in India, he is currently completing a Ph.D. in art history at Yale.