If I Ever Leave Barstool, It Will Be To Guard Mango Trees From Hungry Monkeys In Nepal

Hindustani Times- It’s a quarter past five. Fluffy clouds glide over a dense Alphonso orchard in Ratnagiri. The only sound is the breeze in the trees. Then, suddenly, there’s a piercing shriek and a loud ruffling of leaves. The monkey tribe has signaled its arrival. The battle has begun.

Standing 40 ft below, 65-year-old Narbahadur Vishwakarma takes position and aims his catapult. With one small stone, the monkeys are silenced. Calm returns. The Alphonsos are safe, for now. Narbahadur is among the nearly 70,000 migrants from Nepal who arrive in the Konkan every year to work as Rakhwaldars (Protectors) of the prized Alphonso orchards. Their work begins when the first flowers bloom, and ends only when the last crate has been packed off to market.

Experienced labourers also help pick and sort the mangoes, make the wooden crates, and pack the petis or boxes off for export or sale. Armed with a catapult, rope, stones and a sickle, these workers spend about seven months a year in the scenic coastal districts of Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.

It’s a rough life even for the adults. There are no days off, and no real living conditions. Workers and their families live in makeshift shelters within the orchard — or up in a tree. Some are assigned a room on the property, but guarding up to 1,000 trees means there’s only time for sporadic rest, so even those with rooms rarely use them.

I’ve been stressed lately. So stressed. I’m constantly worried that I won’t reach 100k Instagram followers before my two-year mark at Barstool, which is the single most important goal I set for myself. I feel as though a lot of girls take advantage of me by agreeing to dates even when they know it won’t work out. My traps are NOT where I expected them to be just four days from Memorial Day weekend. And I’m always one bad blog/sentence/video away from a Deadspin hit piece, and it’s not certain that I can always dismember them. Needless to say, the pressures of the job are getting to me.

When I heard about the mango guards in the Konkan, who build little dwellings in the orchards and fire sling shots at chattering monkeys, I heard my calling. I cannot imagine a better life. Sure, you don’t get paid much, but my parents worked hard so that I wouldn’t have to. Thanks to their financial planning, I can pursue dreams like man of the Alphonso mango Night’s Watch.

It’s not all fun and games and fruit. These fearless security guards are armed to the teeth with slingshots that they will not hesitate to use. As the old saying goes, the only thing that can stop a monkey with a taste for mango is a man with a taste for whipping pebbles at light speed through the teeth of a baboon.

It’s not easy on the guards’ families, either. The kids are uprooted from their schools twice a year, shuttling over 2,000 miles each way during and after the mango harvest. The women step in and act as mercenaries so that the men can focus on picking and packing. At night, the couples make love under the moonlight to a baritone rumblings of hungry monkey stomachs. And something tells me they occasionally get to sample their wares. As a big mango guy, it all sounds like paradise.