The coconut tree and the people of Kerala

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There is this coconut tree somewhere in the dense mythical realm of Kerala - every Malayali knows it exists, but no one has seen it, no one knows where it actually is. Every Malayali speaks about it, every Malayali knows the man who climbs it, every Malayali also knows that the man springs up the tree for the flimsiest of reasons, but no Malayali can recall the story behind it.

For the sake of each Malayali on Earth, the man clambers up the tree and stays there, sometimes frequently, sometimes rarely, and for every single Malayali he has stayed atop the tree at least once.

If you are a Malayali, you know by now that the name of the coconut-tree-climber is Sankaran, and that his job is to climb up the tree whenever a Malayali finds himself or herself back to square one.

One of these days I will cut down that darn coconut tree.

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