Teenage Anecdote 2 - Jam fruit plucking

This is the second anecdote from my teens which I had said I would write about in my previous post.

I had gone to stay for my summer vacations at my aunt's house in Churchgate. My aunt sent me back to Matunga on some errand. Once I reached my residence, I found a group of friends sitting down near the water tank. The summer vacations had just started and the 'jam' fruit tree was full of sweet, luscious jams. I saw them eyeing the fruits longingly and wishing they could get their hands on it somehow. Now the tree is located in the Ruparel College vice principals garden, which in turn is a part of Ruparel College's botanical garden. Ruparel College at that point in time had still not shut for summer vacations and students and staff were still around, which is what makes this narrative all the more interesting.

I joined the group and asked them why they do not just cross over the wall and get the fruits. They were actually too scared and said what if they were caught. I told them if we are caught, we will solve that problem then - but first let's get our hands on the 'jam' fruit. Two guys, Prasad and Tushar volunteered to accompany me across the wall. I told them I will climb the tree with a bag for the fruits, Tushar (who was quite plump) was to stand guard duty and Prasad was to pick fruits which fell to the ground.

With the game plan in place we clambered over the wall to get at the fruits. I shimmied up the tree and started plucking fruits and putting them in the bag. Fruits which fell down were being bagged by Prasad. We were at it for about ten minutes, when some students spotted us and called the security guard. Tushar saw them coming a bit late (so much for our security) and shouted a warning. He hid in the gutter - basically a gap between two walls (our boundary wall and the college boundary wall) between which a small rain water nullah ran. I had already gone up the tree and onto the balcony of the vice-principals bungalow, which was just a ground floor structure. Now this bungalow had two sections - one of which was vacant and the other occupied by the vice principal of the Arts College. By the time the guard and student entered the garden Tushar and I were out of sight and Prasad was spotted jumping over the wall - but by the time the guard reached the wall and tried to spot him, Prasad had disappeared. Luckily he did not look in the gutter, else Tushar's goose would have been cooked. They asked the others sitting and waiting for us whether they had seen anybody running away - all of them inncocently answered in the negative.

That left me stranded on the terrace with the bag full of 'jam'! I could hear the animated conversation down below, with the students correctly telling the guard that there were three of us, and one person was on the tree - but guess what I had disappeared from the tree. They did not realise I had gone onto the terrace by jumping from the branch onto the terrace wall and thence onto the terrace! The students along with the guard started searching the garden trying to spot us - the search went on for about fifteen minutes after which my patience had started running out. I saw the three students and guards discussing the matter below the tree - that's when I decided to make a run for it from the other side of the bungalow. This meant I had to lower myself on to the window ledge and from there jump onto the ground - maybe a ten foot jump! Putting the plan into action, I lowered my self onto the ledge (which I thought was cement as it looked like a cement ledge from the top). The moment my feet touched the ledge I removed my body weight from my hands which were on the edge of the terrace to my feet (which I thought were on solid ground), there was a huge crashing sound of the ledge collapsing (made of asbestos you see), and me landing on the ground - luckily on my feet. I heard voices coming from the kitchen in the bungalow and the sound of the guard and students running to in the direction of the noise. This galvanised me into action, and my next step was a leap onto cement support wall for the coconut tree near the boundary wall, the next step onto the wall and the third step into the Society. This sequence of events must have been over in about three seconds flat. By the time the family of the Arts section vice principal, students and guards reached the spot I had disappeared. They did not spot me at all - I went with the bag of jams to the ground floor flat. After about an hour, after things had quietened down, Tushar got out of the gutter and came and joined us. We distributed the 'jams' amongst the group and had a good laugh over the entire course of events.

A week later, I met the vice-principals son on the road (he too was a friend of ours) and he told me that some people from our building had come and flicked 'jam' from their compound and one of them had broken their window ledge. I said, is that so, I wouldn't know, as I have been staying in my aunt's house in Churchgate for the past two weeks. He probably realised I was pulling a fast one, but he was a good natured guy and just left it at that.