"...Woh aa raha hai, jaldi utar!!..."

"...Woh aa raha hai, jaldi utar!!..."

...yelled the guy.["He is coming, come down quick!"]

When I was a kid, summer vacations meant 10x of our favourite activity. Plucking fruits from trees. Mangoes obviously led the list. Then there was white/black jamun, guava, tamarind, amla, chickoo etc. Some missions were quite easy to conquer, if the trees were easy to access and not on private property. A strong & long bamboo/stick with a hook at the end was essential equipment. 

There was this one mango tree in a bungalow a few blocks away. The mangoes were super tangy & tasty. There was one little problem though. The owner obviously wasn't thrilled about our antics. If he caught us, a nice spanking was in order. Lets call this guy Robert.

Three guys in the group had clear roles. Amar - the main guy who was the eldest, planned the whole thing. Amar could pretty much climb every tree. His job was to climb the tree & pluck the fruits.

The next role was that of a catcher. Fruits had to be caught before they hit the ground. It was no fun eating damaged fruits. Akbar was a great catcher. Ricky Ponting would have been proud of him. 

The last but not the least was...who else but Anthony. Anthony was one of the youngest. He could scamper like a rat. His task was to keep an eye on the bungalow door. The moment he saw Robert coming, he had to run to the tree to warn us so that we could make a run. 

Now, when it came to distributing the spoils, each got to pick a fruit every turn. Amar would go first as he took the most risks & put in the most effort. Next was Akbar - we'd be eating many damaged fruits if it weren't for him. Then it was Anthony & then the rest. When only some fruits were left, Amar would hand them all over to Anthony, probably realising that the number of beatings he took was dependent on Anthony's agility. 

The same setup probably applies to life in general. Everyone doesn't want to be the high-flying Amar that takes risks to pluck the fruit. Some want to be Akbar, some Anthony and yet others just friends of Amar, Akbar & Anthony, doing their bit in the scheme of things.

The fruits that one gets may or may not be commensurate with their role, but is the size/count of the fruit the be-all & end-all of it? Akbar/Anthony never had the will/skill to do what Amar could do, yet they never envied Amar. Amar took the best fruits but the worst beatings/falls, yet climbing trees & leading the gang was his passion. The real fun was not the fruits, but the whole adrenaline rush of planning & executing the heist. The fruits tasted sweeter when we ate them together, discussing what we had accomplished as a team.

Usually every Amar, Akbar & Anthony in the world is at peace with their roles/remuneration, but once in a while a Narad (could be a person or our own mind) comes along questioning things. There are days when Narad gets to us and then there are days when you give Narad a slice of mango along with some salt & chilli powder, asking him to chill.