Fruits of Perseverance

Pandurang was the only gardener at the Engineering College. He tended to all that grew out of the soil on the vast campus. For a gardener, his was a really hectic schedule.
In the monsoon he cropped the newly grown grass and made it an art in the way he did it. In the summer he sheared off the dried grass. He clipped the outgrowths from the hedges on the driveway, watered them daily, cut off the occasional branch of a tree when it became too unwieldy, mixed manure to just the right mix and dug them below the red and white rose bushes. His work made him busy but he loved his work. But today he was in a rather grumpy mood. He had just left home after a quarrel with his son who had failed five subjects for the thirteenth time.
Losing his patience he had got into an argument with Anil, his son, the gardener's son, the engineering student who studied in the same engineering college where Pandurang tended to the lawns.
Pandurang was wary of the engineering college students and tried to keep away from them as much as he could. But he wanted his son to be an engineer. Like them. Not become another gardener with a thankless job who toiled on the soil, come rain, come winter, come summmer.
Anil had desperately tried to make his case. "Daddy, I can do it", he had said. "Please give me one more chance and I am sure I will get through."
Pandurang had often seen the children of the rich come to the college in Porsche cars, move around with girls in the gardens among the rose bushes, and return home without attending a single class.
He wanted his son to succeed. But not at the cost of becoming a parasite to him and his extended family, very much like those spoilt brats he hated so much.
Initially he had kept his patience. But Anil's twelth and thirteenth attempt was getting him down.
"Look Anil", he had said sternly. "I am a gardener. And you are a gardener's son. But that doesn't mean I want you to continue the family tradition. I sent you to engineering college to make our family proud, not the disgrace that you are now. And remember, I have financed your education as well as I could, but money doesn't grow on trees. I will give you one more chance. The fourteenth attempt will be your last one. If you fail again, you may as well join me in the campus gardens."
Shaking his head at the challenges of life, Pandurang woke up from his reverie and went to a long forgotten part of the campus lawns. A prickly bush grew in an inaccessible corner surrounded by tall trees. It was a mousambi(sweet lime) tree, he knew from the way the leaves gave fragrance when he rubbed them on his hands. But it was not an ordinary tree. Since the very day he had joined the college as gardener, five years ago, he had watered that tree, tended to it. But neither did it grow. Nor did it flower. It remained the same height, its prickly thorns scratching his hands when he watered it.
Six months later..
Pandurang was back on the campus lawns after an extended illness that had left him weak. Sadly he thought that he would have to retire soon. And his thoughts bitterly went back to his 'wayward' son.
After the regular chores he went to the clump of trees in the midst of which stood the mousambi tree. He could not believe his eyes. Every branch was laden with fruit. All of them a rich mellow. The fruits must be sour, he mused. Tenderly, like a groom touching his bride he plucked off one fruit and peeled off the thin yellowish skin. He put a slice into his mouth.
Pandurang just could not believe it. The fruit was the sweetest he had ever tasted in his life. My efforts were not in vain, he thought, as he shook his head in wonder and headed home, his last chore done.
When he reached his shack which he and his family called home, he noticed something was amiss. His son, Anil was standing at the doorway extremely excited, waving a piece of paper.
"Daddy!", he shouted in glee. "I have covered all the five papers. I am an engineer now!"
Pandurang was speechless. His mind went back to the barren mousambi tree that had suddenly borne fruit. Uncomparably delicious fruit.