There was once a man who had a piece of land in Julau filled with 100 rubber trees. Every morning he would wake up at 4:00 a.m. to go rubber tapping. He tapped 50 trees a day and got about 2.5kg worth of latex. After collecting all the rubber in a bucket, he would go to the smoke house, mix the milky liquid with a bit of diluted acid, pressed them into sheets and smoke them. Then he would choose sheets from the previous day that were ready to sell and piled them on his bicycle.
Most times he finished work in the farm by 10:00 a.m., after which he would go home for a cup of hot tea and helped his wife slaughter a chicken or chop up heavy chunks of meat. Next, it was a quick trip to town at 11:15 am to sell the rubber sheets. At a little pass noon he would be found standing in front of the school gate, waiting for his two daughters. After a short walk home the whole family would sit down for a simple lunch, followed by a nap.
Every weekday was spent that way and when the weekend rollover, Pawan and his family would go into the woods around his fields to look for fern and other types of wild fruits in season.
One day, an agricultural officer came to the village. He talked to the people about mass production. "The more you make, the more you can sell and the more you will earn. Your family will have a better future and you will all be happier."
Pawan hung on to every word. Yes, the man was right. If he taps all 100 trees, he can get 5kg worth of latex a day. His daily income will double. He can get cable TV and his daughters will become as smart at that little girl in the advertisement he saw the other night. Maybe he can also get a washing machine for his wife.
The more he thought, the more he wanted to tap all 100 trees in a day. Then he decided that if he works over the weekend, he could get 10kg extra each week.
Sure enough, he began tapping 100 trees the following day. The tea was cold when he reached home and he had not even finished pressing the sheets yet. His wife had to pick up the girls. She complained at first, but smiled when he told her about his plan to get her a washing machine. His girls were so excited about Cable TV they didn't mind not having lunch with papa.
Days turned to months and by the end of the year, Pawan had bought his family the things he promised them. However, he found that he couldn't stop tapping 100 trees a day because he had to pay for the extra electricity and Cable TV bills. His wife was also forced to buy the more expensive plucked and chopped meat at the market because he wasn't around to help her anymore. When he stepped into the house in the evening after a hard day's work, he would find his clothes freshly laundered and his family in front of the TV set.
The dinner table became lonesome and when he tried to have a conversation with his family, he couldn't understand half of the things his daughters talked about. He began to take his dinner in a coffee stall at the edge of the village. There he spent his time watching wrestling reruns with other men who had spent the whole day rubber tapping. Everyone was happy, well-fed and wore clean shirts.
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