MINT BY SUNDAR ILLUSTRATED BY SENTHIL KUMAR
In a forest far far away, which exists
only in the imagination of little children, were a group of monkeys; Mint was the youngest among them. Every day the whole group, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas would all go looking for food in the jungle and after a hard day of foraging in the forest, they would go down to the river for a drink, to quench their thirst.
One day on their way to the river, Mint noticed a wonderful fragrance coming from far away. He had not experienced such sweet smell and asked his mother, what could it possibly be. "It's the smell from the Pineapple fruit" she replied, and Mint immediately wanted to know whether he could eat it, because anything that smelled so nice has to taste good too. His mother not wanting to spoil the fun; "Why don't you go and find it out for yourself".
Mint told this to the rest of his friends and they all rushed to see such sweet smelling fruit. The older kids stayed behind. When this little party reached the plant they saw a huge fruit at its center and when they tried to grab it, the sharp spines of the fruit pricked their little fingers and made them bleed. Mint’s party returned without any success and now they understood why the older ones stayed behind. His mother knew fully well the consequences of their actions but pretended to act surprised, when he narrated his sad story. "The wicked plant is guarding the fruit with thorns" he said; everyone chuckled at his innocence.
Every time the troop went to the river, Mint’s party would run to the Pineapple plant to check its status. Because in their little minds they had devised a plan to grab the fruit when the plant was not guarding it. Every day the crowd that followed Mint grew thin and soon he was the only one left to submit a report. As he returned, his friends would ask,"Is it wicked still?". Mint replied, "Yes! It's guarding it, all right."
As his foolish endeavour continued, Mint became the butt of jokes, and on his return from yet another fact checking mission, someone commented, "Make way for Sir Mint, after his duel with the plant". The other day, someone improvised their voice as if from a radio, "We interrupt this program to bring you the latest from Sir Mint's mission number 901", after a short pass the fake announcer continued, "The plant won". Mint was sad hearing these wise remarks,but his desire was more. So he would always say to them, "I keep checking because, if we forget our problem, how will we ever solve it?". Even Mint was only half convinced at this reply.
One day after some heavy rains the monkeys were having great difficulty reaching the river, as the ground was soggy. When they arrived their hands and feet were covered in mud. Mint observed that some of them scrubbed their hands against the stones on the river bank to get rid of the muck. Mint had a flash of idea and quickly grabbed a coarse rock and raced to the Pineapple plant, even as he could hear some wise comments and chuckles from the crowd.
He scrubbed the thorns with the rock until he could see the flesh of the fruit. The plant was now, no match for the clever Mint, as it could guard its fruit no longer. Mint took a bite at the fruit and was in heaven, not only because of the sweetness of the fruit, but also at his own success.
The whole crowd watched in awe and soon the culture spread. From that day on, though it was officially "Sir Mint", he knew deep down in his heart that he was just an ordinary monkey, who remembered what he set out to do.