Helpless in the mango season

Sometimes the American way seems to be the only solution.Most Americans can sue for the silliest of reasons and in India on the other hand I cant sue anyone for anything and if i did I can think of paying a lawyer for years to come and be sure that other than burn a hole in my bank account,nothing much will come of it.

Take for instance today,a sleepy Sunday afternoon and the roads are empty and the sun blazes down in unrelenting heat.The neighbour has striped his mango tree of all its fruit save the branches that are too high.Now the only thing left are a bunch of tempting mangoes hanging from the high branches.We are just about thinking of having a cat nap when a loud noise accompanied by shattering glass tells us the all too familiar story.The local boys are out in large numbers,armed with stones to knock down the mangoes.Unfortunately aim is not one of their strong points so instead of getting the mango they get our window pane.This is a yearly summer occurrence.We rush out but are too late for the nimble limbed urchins,the neighbour is apologetic but cant do much.All it ensures is that we have a new and unexpected financial problem to deal with.We also know that its best to live with a broken window pane until the season is over or the boys will be back at it.

Now we talk about it but cant do a thing,we cant sue our neighbour or the street urchins,we cant sue the police for not keeping guard and we grin and bear it.We tell ourselves that we are lucky it wasn't the car that was damaged and send up a silent prayer that the boys don't get it next time.This is India and we learn to cope,swallow out anger,deal with our helplessness and try and count our blessings.This is the only way to survive this country