King Among Fruits

It appears that I have grossly underestimated people’s love for durian. Now, I understand that durian is the fruit kingdom’s equivalent of Elvis. Or some people would travel to Malaysia just to taste a certain species of durian. And it’s among the priciest fruit in the market. In Jakarta at least. It’s dirt cheap in Palembang or Medan. A perfectly ripe durian is said to be able to make you believe in God.

Yes, I get it. Durian is the yummiest delicacy ever produced by a tree. I kind of like it myself. Not like it enough to risk physical harm though. But some people would. And I had no idea about that until last Sunday.

I was shopping for milk and diapers (yes, those are the kind of things I shop for these days) at a supermarket when I noticed some people carrying durians to the check-out line. Now, that was strange because we passed the vegetables and fruit section a while ago and there was not even a whiff of the fruit. Usually, when the store is having a durian sale, the smell will greet you at the parking lot.

But there’s nothing there. We had finished shopping and were on our way out of the building when I told my wife that I was going to double check. A durian sale is always worth checking out. Actually, that’s about the only time we could afford one.
When I get to the fruits and vegs section things were as they were a while ago. No durian. I was about to leave when I noticed the attendant emerged from the back dock. He pulled a trolley on which three cartoons bearing the mark of the king of fruit. Imported durians of montong variety. The good ones. Then the inexplicable happened.

Out of nowhere people literally jumped on them. Seriously. They jumped in and muscled their way around the trolley trying to grab as many durian as possible. An elderly gentleman, who apparently thought fuck it-here goes nothing, barged in shoulder first to the crowd. Think of opening the scene of Black Hawk Down in which the starving refugees fought over sacks of donated flour. I kid you not. Same thing happened here in an air-conditioned hypermart in Jakarta.

Shouting and baring their teeth at one another, they thrust their hands into the box and try to claw out any durian that they can get their hands on. Even in a peaceful condition, you need to be careful when handling durians. It’s called durian for a reason, i.e. the skin is made of hundreds of sharp spikes the size of your thumb. These people were groping in with reckless abandon. It wasn’t long before yelps of pain started to be heard.

A man managed to drag a way a full cartoon and made for the checkout line. Others were quick in mad pursuit. They yanked the box with rugby-like tackle. Both knees on the floor, completely ignoring the man’s repeated claim that the durian was his. You had to be there to believe it.

It was over in less than a minute. Three cartoons of durian. All gone. I was stunned. The elderly man walked to the checkout carrying a quarter of the fruit with his scraped hands. It was split open during the scramble. I didn’t know how the cashier was going to weigh that.

Please accept my respectful bow, O, King Among Fruits.