The Coconut King

We are in the wild west of India. This is in the late 1990s. 

Imagine a place in India so far west, it's practically in another dimension. A land beyond the Chambal's wildest dreams, where the village of Karoai clings to existence. A coastal hamlet, where sun sets an hour before the rest of the world. This forsaken outpost, nestled near the Goa-Karnataka border, is accessible only by a treacherous dirt path that snakes through a jungle so dense, even Tarzan would need a compass. Essentially, it's India's answer to the Wild West, minus the cowboys and plus the monsoons and mosquitoes.

Vijay Cheruppadi, a name whispered with equal parts reverence and terror along the sun-kissed shores of Karois, was, by all accounts, a man of contradictions. 

With the chiseled jawline of a Hollywood heartthrob and the moral compass of a particularly unscrupulous jellyfish, Vijay was the king of his own little empire of vices.

Legend has it that, he was once a suit-wearing MBA from Kerala, a place where the weather was as hot as his temper. But as fate would have it, a "minor misunderstanding" involving the dean's daughter, a goat, and three barrels of coconut oil had sent him fleeing faster than you could say "ethical business practices."

After a brief stint in Bangalore where he slept on the job more often in the name of late hours, he had a rather dull existence in Dubai including a short jail term, ironically for working on religious holiday (grapevine has it that he slept on the job and woke up next day, when it was a religious holiday and Arab rules being rules, he was their guest for a while). Before he could sleep further, he was forced to find a new place to trade his wares. 

It took him on a stint in an unnamed African country – where he tried plying autorickshaw in the potholes of the dark continent. Soon, the locals didn't took it kindly when his eyes started wandering and they were worried about their womenfolk. It didn't take long before he was bundled into a sack and dumped far away in the ocean. Luck was on his side in the form of buoyancy, thanks to his gas filled ego and the beans he had the previous day. He was literally fished out from the sea by the unsuspecting Karoisians. 

Karois was a village where the locals spoke a curious mix of Tulu and Konkani, and where the goons spoke the universal language of "mind your own business if you want to keep your kneecaps." These were no ordinary goons. These were hardened ones, who were on the run from the law, who found that however long the arms of the laws were, it couldn't reach Karois. 

It was here that Vijay found himself. He, ever the opportunist, saw Karois for what it truly was: a gold mine of untapped potential and blissfully ignorant customers. Within months, he had his fingers in more pies than a clumsy baker – spurious liquor, recreational pharmaceuticals, and even the humble fishing business. His bars became the stuff of legend, where the beer was always cold, the dice were always loaded, and the hangovers were always free of charge. And his tales of exploits of his past, mostly creation of his wonderful mind, made him sort of legend for the people of Karois, whose average IQ struggled in the bottom 2 digits.

Soon he gathered enough followers and enough moolah to become the uncrowned king of this hell hole. 

A local legend, he ruled his tiny kingdom with a fist as iron as Kerala’s red laterite soil. To his people, he was more than a mob boss; he was Santa Claus, Mother Teresa, and Captain Planet rolled into one, but with a penchant for fishing and a questionable taste in beverages and substances. His empire rested on three shaky pillars: booze that'd make a fish do the tango, drugs so potent they’d turn a nun into a rave dancer, and a fishing fleet that owned the Arabian Sea like it was their personal pond. 

His chiseled looks and flattering talks gathered his a following among the local female population. He always had a penchant for the exotic, and fair skinned maidens, which mostly made up the reason why he didn't stay at any place for long. 

Not that he was successful with the women, his adventures were more of a teenager, who will try their best to get their crush's attention, but couldn't muster the courage when their subject of attention responded. This flaw in him made his fascination into a kind of unintended perverted voyeurism, where he would unknowingly ogle at a lady and go into a deep dive into his imagination. 

In this world that he enters, he would have already won her hand, will be getting married and by the time his imagination reach the steps of the labour room, he is usually awakened rather rudely by a fist or palm which would have caressed his cheeks lovingly, leaving the marks of a loving memory. 

In Karois, where he was a living legend, the women took it a a compliment to be ogled by him. He particularly had a fascination for the Anglo-Indian women who occasionally visited the coastal towns. And after all these years, he finally had luck with the women here. Not, not the physical kind of luck. He could now flirt with them without shivering in his lungi. But these were fleeting encounters, devoid of any emotional depth. 

Yet, amidst the glitz and glamour of his underworld life, there was a void, a longing for something more than power and money. Deep down he was lonely as the last megalodon of its species stuck in the Mariana's Trench. He longed for love and companionship, but he would be the last to admit it. He had all the money that can put Ambani and Adani to shame, all the power that could put Indian politicians to shame, and a army of followers who were ready to spill their blood and soul for him. Had Putin and Xi known about him, they would already be wooing him. But, strange is the way of the human heart, it always yearn for things which it can't have. 

And then came Sheryl D'Cruz, a fisherwoman with eyes as deep as the ocean and a laugh as infectious as the monsoon. She was a breath of fresh air in the stifling world of Vijay. He found himself drawn to her, captivated by her simplicity, her resilience.

Their affair was a delicate dance between desire and caution. Vijay, the man who commanded armies, was rendered a quivering jelly in her presence. Sheryl, with a shrewdness that belied her innocent demeanor, played her cards perfectly. She led him on, kept him tantalized. For the first time, he found courage before a lady. He sought intimacy, she kept it platonic. 

She had issues, the kind of things common to the lower middle class. The remoteness of Karois didn't affect the issues faced by its folks. They were the same across the country. Only difference is, here there was no Government to steal from them in the name of taxes. But they were so poor that it didn't matter. She had aged parents and an ailing brother to take care. She was her family's only hope and whatever she managed to earn extended their survival. The family was hugely in debt and the loan sharks had demanded such a huge repayment of interest which made the Indian FM look like a deen dayalu lady. 

Their affair was a rollercoaster of emotions, with Vijay playing the lovesick puppy and Sheryl the enigmatic cat. 

Sheryl, however, was a master manipulator. While Vijay was blinded by passion, she was meticulously extracting wealth from him. "Investments," she'd call them, her eyes shimmering with seductive promises. He, desperate to please her, signed away fortunes, oblivious to the fact that these "investments" were nothing more than elaborate scams. She drained his accounts, siphoned off his assets, and left him financially crippled, all while maintaining the facade of a devoted lover. 

Just when he thought he had her purring, she vanished, taking with her not just his heart but also a substantial chunk of his empire.

When he finally realized the extent of his losses, he was furious. He ordered Almeida, his most trusted lieutenant, to find Sheryl and bring her back. Almeida, with a solemn vow of loyalty, disappeared into the shadows. Days turned into weeks, then months, and still, there was no sign of either Sheryl or Almeida. Then, whispers began to circulate among the sailors of the seas – tales of a woman with eyes like emeralds and a laugh that could melt glaciers, sailing the high seas with a man who bore a striking resemblance to Almeida. Vijay, piecing together the fragments of information, finally understood the chilling truth: Sheryl and Almeida had been in cahoots all along, their love affair a carefully orchestrated con, leaving him not only bankrupt but utterly humiliated

The ensuing meltdown was epic. Vijay, the man who once controlled the weather with a phone call, was now a shadow of his former self. He’d traded his Armani suits for coir coats and his whiskey for coconut water. His once-fearsome goons were reduced to babysitters, their gruff exterior masking a deep concern for their boss's deteriorating mental health.

As the days turned into weeks, Vijay's mind, once a fortress of cunning, became a playground for conspiracy theories. He was convinced Sheryl and Almeida were living a life of luxury in Portugal, sipping sangria and laughing at his misfortune. He even started suspecting his loyal goons of being in on the plot, their sympathy a carefully crafted facade.

In the end, Vijay found solace in the company of coconuts. He'd spend hours on the beach, watching them bob and weave with the tides, finding a strange kinship with these drifting orbs. He even started to imagine himself as a coconut – tough on the outside, sweet and refreshing on the inside. He'd sit on the sand, sipping coconut water, and chuckle to himself. "At least," he'd mutter, "I don't have to worry about Sheryl trying to steal my milk."

However, the seed of an idea had been planted. He began to see the coconuts not just as companions, but as vessels, as rafts. Weeks turned into months, and Vijay, fueled by a strange mix of desperation and a newfound sense of adventure, began to construct a makeshift raft. He meticulously lashed together coconut husks, weaving them into a sturdy, if somewhat unconventional, vessel. The villagers watched with a mixture of amusement and concern as the once-mighty Vijay, now resembling a castaway from a forgotten age, prepared to set sail.

And so, with a mischievous glint in his eye and a bottle of coconut water in hand, Vijay pushed off from shore. His destination?Maybe Portugal. His mission? To find the traitors or to new adventures, to embrace the unexpected, and to prove to himself, and perhaps to the world, that even a dethroned king could still sail the seas and make his own luck. Months later, battered but unbowed, he washed ashore on the beaches of South Goa, where his miadventures continued, albeit with a slightly more… tropical flair.

The end

___