The papaya tree has been a permanent fixture in my backyard garden. Ever since I started my gardening journey, it has been like a silent CCTV camera, witnessing the changing landscape. It’s not as if the same tree has lived through the years, but it feels like the ancestral spirits of papaya trees linger on, hovering over the space like benevolent angels. With every newly planted tree, it seems to thrive as if the soil there holds a secret recipe, especially when planted in the same spot—right next to the back wall separating my home from my neighbours, and about three feet from the parapet of my staircase. It’s also been a convenient location, as plucking the fruits is easy—always within arm’s reach while standing on the seven-foot back wall.
This time, though, plucking papayas has been an adventure worthy of a documentary—minus the safety gear.
The initial few times, when the fruits were low-hanging, it seemed usual to pluck them just standing on the ground, or later, by standing on the wall. Over a year, the tree has grown over fifteen feet tall, and the fruits have become unreachable. It’s as if the tree has grown with a personal vendetta, determined to show me that my initial efforts to eliminate it were futile—and that this is now payback season.
A little filmy flashback.. About a year ago, within a few weeks of planting the sapling, I found that it had suffered a sudden pest attack. Before I could fully attend to it, I had to leave town for two weeks on a planned trip. Assuming the tree wouldn’t survive those two weeks, with a heavy heart, I axed the four-foot plant and split it into two, with the intention of completely removing it on my return. I had, however, engaged my house help to water the garden in my absence.
Here I was, in the present day, trying every trick in the book to reach the fruits of a tree I had once written off as doomed.
My ninety-year-old father has been a constant presence through this saga and its many adventures. For him, who waters the tree daily and oversees its growth more than I do, it had become both a moral dilemma and a daily anxiety trigger to see ripe, inaccessible fruits hanging on the tree.
Our first idea was to use a ladder. As our own old bamboo ladder had disappeared into the great ladder afterlife, I reached out to my neighbour, who kindly offered her steel ladder. With gusto, I swung into action. Only when I placed the seven-foot ladder next to the tree did I realise the futility—standing on it was no different from standing on the back wall. Theory and practicals, once again, refused to be on speaking terms. We had a good laugh at my complete lack of estimation.
It was a small setback, but the energy to accomplish the task hadn’t diminished. Immediately, we decided that a bag tied to a stick with a hook in front would make a good apparatus. Both of us sprang into action, and in about half an hour, the tool was ready. Standing on the back wall, I tried to get the fruits into the bag while balancing on the seven-foot-by-eight-inch wall. The hook was flimsy, the bag wobbled like it had stage fright, but the fruit finally relented to our efforts more out of pity than persuasion. We managed to bag five papayas—it felt like winning an Olympic medal for backyard engineering.
The next time, about a month later, the papayas had climbed another foot higher. This time, my hand was in a fracture. How did I land in this state? No, not while plucking papayas from a seven-foot wall—it was due to a fall in a backward running race. I know—even Darwin would need a minute to process this. There was no way I could climb the wall and repeat the previous trick. I called my house help and mustered her courage to perform the balancing act, while silently praying she wouldn’t fall and fracture herself. With a lot of instructions and encouragement, we bagged another bountiful harvest, though a few fruits landed with a thud in the neighbour’s house. I was relieved that it was fruit that landed there, and not my house help, who thankfully managed to remain wall-bound.
They say two is lucky, and three is a charm. When it was time for the next plucking, my hand was out of the cast and I was ready for action again. During one of my walks, I had spotted a long bamboo ladder lying in a neighbour’s house. I immediately went there and borrowed it. This time, my cousin from Mumbai was around to experience this sacred ritual of human–papaya union. I was so convinced that the long ladder would solve everything that every other consideration faded into the background.
My cousin and I struggled to manoeuvre the heavy twenty-foot ladder into the backyard through a narrow alley with sharp right-angle turns. With great difficulty, when we finally placed it near the tree, we realised that the ladder was far taller than the tree itself—an overachiever with no purpose. There was no support to rest it against. Having just recovered from a fracture, my confidence—and my legs—were shaking even to climb the first few rungs. My sense of estimation was officially in ruins. I wondered if it was my hand or my imagination that had suffered the fracture.
My father, watching this tamasha from the rooftop with a bird’s-eye view, suggested placing the ladder against the opposite wall instead of the tree. Though the top still lacked solid support, it seemed like a workable alternative. With my cousin holding the bottom and my father steadying the top, I mustered the courage to climb four or five steps. There was still a two-foot gap between me and the tree. Holding the ladder rung with my left hand, I lunged toward the tree like an underqualified Tarzan, throwing all caution out of the backyard, and managed to pluck a few fruits. All the drama felt worthwhile when we finally held the semi-ripe papayas.
As I climbed down, the question of returning the ladder popped up. My sluggish brain immediately suggested asking help from a worker at a nearby construction site. Why I hadn’t thought of this while bringing the ladder, I wondered? Though it was lunchtime, I managed to find one who was doom-scrolling. I told him we needed at least two more people, as the task required muscle power. When he entered the backyard, he casually picked up the ladder like it was a toy, balanced it on his shoulders, and manoeuvred it single-handedly through the narrow alley like an F1 driver taking a perfect turn. His effortless handling of the ladder left my cousin and me momentarily speechless—like watching Superman casually lift a car while we were spectators on the sidelines. With a smirk, he asked, “Why did you say you needed two more people?”
Another fifteen days passed. More ripe fruits appeared on the tree. My father and I ignored the sight and avoided the topic as if it were the plague. Like the fruits overhead, there was a heavy weight hanging in our minds about what to do next. Then one day, the stars aligned. A Bucket—this time with a stick tied to its handle—became our next prop. Standing on the staircase and using the side wall for support, I managed to collect the fruits one by one into the bucket after engaging in a brief but determined tug-of-war with each papaya. Yet another small victory, secured against all odds and common sense.
The tree still stands tall, with many more raw fruits waiting to ripen—waiting to test our creativity, gift us more adventures, and finally, quite literally, give us the fruits of our labour, after first making sure we’ve earned every bite.
