Stolen bananas end up back in owner’s hands — at a price

By Sunil Ekanayaka

Colombo, Oct. 10 (Daily Mirror) - In a dramatic turn of events, the owner had to buy part of a bunch of bananas that had been stolen from his home garden by a thief and sold to a boutique.

The owner of the home garden is a farmer in the Hasalaka area whose main occupation is paddy cultivation. In addition, he cultivates coconut, banana, and vegetables to support his family of four children.

He is constantly facing the menace of thieves who enter the home garden at night and steal his crops. Quite often, bunches of bananas, areca nuts, and coconuts are stolen from his garden, much to his anxiety. On pitch-dark nights and rainy days, manioc and yams too are at the mercy of thieves.

However, he is never moved when he finds his crops stolen. Instead, he sympathizes with them and says, “Let those miserable ones take away anything they want and eat or sell them.”

The Good Samaritan never hesitates to donate his crops for any social activity in the village, demonstrating that he is a man of high caliber.

His paddy field is in the Minipe agricultural colony, about four kilometers away from his home. On the day of the incident, on his way back from the paddy field, he stepped into a nearby tea kiosk to rest for a while over a cup of tea. The ripe bunch of bananas hanging from the roof drew his attention, and he felt the urge to buy a comb of plantains for his daughter’s children, who relished “Kolikuttu” plantains.

While paying for the two combs of plantains he purchased, along with the tea, he inquired from the boutique owner about the person who had brought the bunch of bananas. The latter said a certain person had brought and sold it.

“Surely he must have stolen it from a home garden. He is not an individual who cultivates anything or is used to working with a mammoty,” said the farmer, without the slightest idea that the bunch of bananas had come from his own garden.

In the evening, while walking in his home garden to check on the crops, he was shocked to find that the bunch of bananas he had seen the previous day was missing. At once, he had a brainwave about what had happened.

“I can well understand it. That scoundrel has cut and sold the bunch of bananas to the boutique,” he whispered to himself, returning home with a sorrowful expression on his face.

His wife, astonished to see a change in her husband, inquired what the matter was.

“Not only did that scoundrel steal the bunch of bananas from the home garden, but I also had to buy the first comb with my hard-earned money,” he said, pointing to the two combs of “Kolikuttu” plantains he had brought in the afternoon on his way back from the paddy field.