030 | STORYTELLING | FOLKLORE
The Search for the “Fruit Garden of the Elder”
A childhood adventure
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It was February 3rd, 1998. How can I be so specific you may ask. Well, it was the day Prince Charles, now King Charles III, came to Sri Lanka. He planned to attend our Independence Day celebrations the following day.
Since I was only 10 years old, I don’t remember why it was declared a holiday, even though it was a weekday. I suppose Prince Charles’ visit was of great importance.
Regardless, we were just happy to have the day off from school. So, my cousins and I planned to explore a local myth about a nearby mountain called “Handurukkanda.”
According to my grandma, the mountain was named after the people of a particular caste. They were called “Handuru,” and they lived on the part of the mountain. “Handuru-Kanda” eventually became “Handurukkanda,” which means “the mountain of Handuru.”
I doubt that most Sri Lankans have heard of this small mountain, which stands just over 1,000 meters (approximately 3,300 feet) tall. Still, it was a place of great significance for our local community.
Several myths are associated with the mountain, but the most famous one is “The Fruit Garden of the Elder.” According to local legend, there is a secret garden on the mountain filled with fruit trees that never go out of season.
You can eat as much as you want but you can’t take a single fruit — even something small as a jackal jujube — outside the garden. I know there are similar places in other parts of the world, but in our community, this one is considered the real deal.
Sometimes, people in our community found this secret garden by accident and talked about it, which made others interested in it. Usually, it’s people who bring their cows to the mountains to feed, that find it. When I was a kid, some villagers started to make illegal moonshine at a part of the mountain. They often spread stories about the garden. This made more people curious about the garden.
Their story is always the same.
They reach an unfamiliar area without knowing how they got there and find an open place filled with fruit trees. Most people know the legend, so they don’t try to bring anything back from the mountain. Later, when they try to find the place again, they can’t.
The garden has simply vanished.
However, on some rare occasions when people have tried to bring fruit they plucked from the garden, they couldn’t find their way back home. They wandered here and there for many hours until they got rid of the fruit.
That’s not the only way you can get lost in the mountain. There was another myth associated with a particular type of vine on the mountain. If you accidentally step over it, it will be impossible to find your way back home.
In either case, it was not a rare occurrence that someone got lost in our early days.
We often heard name calls and hoots in the distance from the search parties trying to locate the lost. If you paid close attention, you could even see a glimpse of torch lights — made from dried coconut leaves — on those evenings.
So that is why my cousins and I decided to try to find this so-called Fruit Garden of The Elder. We were a team of six cousins and we spent almost all day traveling across the mountain’s peak searching for the hidden garden.
Recently, I checked the path we must have taken on Google Earth. It was just over 6 kilometers (about 3.7 miles) long. But it was a very long journey for a child of 10 years old.
At the peak, we took a break for lunch and marked our visit with a large flag which you can see from our village, but we never found the garden. On the way back down, we again searched for possible locations, but all we found were a few isolated fruit trees and bushes.
We returned home disappointed, feeling heartbroken that we couldn’t find the garden we had been searching for. Looking back, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be found.
As we were descending the mountain, we heard a helicopter overhead. We all screamed “Prince Charles!” at the top of our lungs, assuming it was his ride. Although we didn’t find the fruit garden, the memories of that day remain with me to this day.
Through writing about my past memories, I was able to re-establish connections with the people and locations from my past. So, it gives me another reason to be happy. Hopefully, we shall meet again with a story like this soon.