TWO FISH AND TWO COCONUTS
By Stephen Lewis
10/04/2023
Brad defined himself as a mid level executive in a large company and he had always been about growing and becoming bigger. But Brad carried a lot of stress from work so he needed a vacation. When he looked through all of the glossy brochures in the travel agent he thought that Sri Lanka sounded the most out of the way place. He was never likely to run into people or parts of his work life there. So in less than two weeks he was holed up in a beautiful hotel set right on the beach away from the rest of the world in which he normally lived.
As part of the routine that Brad wanted to set for himself on holidays, he started the day with a nice sleep in, which he never normally did, and then followed it up with a barefoot walk along the beach.
That morning the day was warm but not yet too hot and he enjoyed watching the fishing boats bob on the horizon as he felt the warm sand crunch between his toes.
As he walked further and further away from his hotel he noticed a tiny hand made, wooden boat was making its way towards the shore. The young fisherman captaining the craft smiled as the two neared each other and Brad found himself effortlessly waving back. The craft came aground just as Brad was walking past so he walked over, curious to see what the fisherman had caught.
The two strangers introduced themselves. The brown skinned fisherman held out his hand and said his name was Chatura. The tall executive returned the handshake and said, “Call me Brad.” Chatura had a warm smile and responded by saying, “Nice to meet you Mr Brad.” From that moment on he would alway be Mr Brad.
The two strangers struck up a conversation. Both men were intrigued by the other. Brad admired how simple Chatura’s life seemed and Chatura admired the obviously successful Mr Brad.
Brad enquired about the man’s catch as he saw that there were two decently sized fish lying at the bottom of Cahatura’s boat. Chatura told him that everyday he got up and went out fishing. He stayed out until he had caught two fish. This usually took him thirty minutes to an hour and then came home. He shielded his eyes from the morning light as he used his other hand to point to the edge of the jungle behind them.
“Now I will go and climb one of those coconut trees and grab two coconuts.” Chatura told him.
“My house is that one over there”, Chatura continues pointing at a one roomed shack that was built on the beach next to the jungle.
“I take the two fish and two coconuts to my wife and she makes food for my family and that is all we need for the day. Tomorrow I will go out and do the same thing.”
Brad loved the simplicity of Cahatura’s life, especially compared to how complex he was but he couldn’t help asking more questions. The two men stood talking on the beach for the next half an hour until the sun rose high enough for Chatura to invite Mr Brad back to meet his family. Chatura had a young wife and a son who seemed about 7 or 8. He also had a three year old daughter and Brad could see without being told that they had another one on the way. His house was simple but comfortable. The floor sand but covered with a large well swept mat.
The two men talked some more and Brad asked if he could offer a suggestion as he thought he might be able to make the Fisherman’s family life better.
He talked about doing things bigger and more efficiently. Chatura asked him how?
“Well,” Said Brad “ Instead of just getting up and putting in all the effort to just go and get two fish he could perhaps stay out on the ocean all morning and fill his boat full of fish.”
Chatura looked at him a little puzzled and asked why? “ Two fish is all my family eats each day.”
“Yes.” Brad replied “ But if you came back with a boatload of fish each day you could feed your family and sell the rest at the market. Then you could get some money and buy a bigger boat.”
The two men talked some more and Brad drew out his plan to expand Chatura’s operation on the sandy floor with a stick. After enjoying each other’s company for the morning Brad left and returned to walk back to his hotel.
The two men saw each other a couple more times during Brad’s two week holiday and then he left to return back to his fast paced life.
A couple of years later Brad returned to the shores of SriLanka, fondly remembering his previous vacation there and how it had relaxed him so well.
During his afternoon walk he was happy and surprised to see Chatura standing and waiting for him at the far end of the beach.
Chatura told him that he had spotted him while fishing that morning and knowing that he would be a man of habit he had come down to see his old friend.
The two men reminisced and caught up on their respective lives.
Chatura now looked like a man. When first they met he had still looked somewhat like a boy despite being in his late twenties. Now at about thirty he looked like the man he was to become.
Chatura proudly told Mr Brad that he had taken his advice and had worked hard each day fishing before his wife and kids took the excess fish off to the market. They had now upgraded the wooden canoe that Chatura hand carved with his father many years ago and was the proud owner of a fishing vessel which he took out each day with his ten year old son and filled to capacity. Life was good and he could now afford to have running water into his house which made life a lot easier for the whole family.
Brad too was proud of his friend and without being able to control himself offered up some more life advice.
“Why don’t you expand?” As before he wrote out a simple business plan for Chatura that would allow him to go from one boat to a fleet of boats. He talked about going to the bank for a loan to make the process faster and even offered to help go with him as this was not something that Chatura had any knowledge of. By the end of their conversation the two men were very excited about the future of the business. Over the next two weeks Brad used his knowledge to help his friend secure a small loan and they mapped out a plan for how Chatura could hire some cousins to help him crew the other fishing boats.
It wasn’t quite as relaxing a holiday as Brad had expected but when he boarded the plane to return home after two weeks he knew he had set his friend up for success and prosperity.
It was another few years before Brad could get to SriLanka again but the gravitational pull of his friendship finally got him back.
Chatura’s son was now 14 and captaining one of the boats by himself now. As for the rest of the family, they had added another two boys to the mix and although only in his mid thirties Chatura’s hairline was starting to recede. Brad had already lost his hair many years ago so the two joked that they were becoming more and more like each other.
Chatura asked what his next step should be as he knew that Mr Brad would have been thinking about it over the last few years.
This time Brad pulled out his laptop and went through some of the plans that he had jotted down, knowing the two of them would have this conversation.
The main component of the plan was to expand the fleet of boats and to start a business where Chatura could package his fish and not just have to sell all of his fish at the local market. This way he could import his product all over the world and build a manufacturing factory where they could package all of his fish that his fleet caught daily.
Over the next two weeks the two men caught up every day and worked through Brad’s plans. They saw the banks to secure more finance and worked out packaging agreements with international conglomerates.
It wasn’t the relaxing holiday that Brad had originally gone to SriLanka for but both men were excited about the possibilities now that they were in full swing building an actual business. Two weeks later Brad was heading home but Chatura was hard at work everyday building what the two men had envisioned.
Although it was a couple of years before Brad could find the time to get back to Sri Lanka again the friends kept in contact as Chatura now had email. Sometimes it took Brad a good deal of effort to unravel what Chatura was typing. He enjoyed the conversation and promised to make it back there again soon.
Chatura had grown visibly older the next time the two men met at the fish factory. The production lines hummed in the background as the fish was sorted, Vacuum sealed or sealed up in cans. The two men admired how far they had come since first they had met on the beach ten years ago.
Chatura now had a decent belly and his receding hairline was now just graying tufts of wispy hair. Still the two men embraced, happy to be in each other’s company again.
Chatura told him of a problem that they were having. Despite having a couple more boats their daily catch was declining. The areas in which they fished were becoming fished out and he was afraid that one day the boats would come back with no catch aboard.
Brad pondered on this for a moment and then remembered back to the day that they had first met. He walked with Chatura to the factory door and looked out into the jungle. There he could see coconut trees for as far as the eye could see.
He pointed to the trees and said. “There is your solution. Diversification”
Catura did not know what diversification was so Brad explained it to him.
Instead of just getting all his money from fishing he could get coconuts and export them the same way that he was with the fish.
But this time he added. “We may not be able to control how many fish we can get out of the ocean over time, but we can control the coconuts.”
He went on to explain, “If we just send teams up the coconut trees, then sooner or later we will start to exhaust those supplies too, so we can buy some land where it is still cheap and build a coconut plantation. That way if we build it large enough we will never run out of coconuts.”
The men agreed and this was the focus of Brad’s next two weeks. And it worked. By the time Brad left Sri Lanka, they had secured financing, purchased a site and were on track to have a new processing plant up and running by the end of the year. Brad left happy that his friend was once again on the right track.
Work got a little tough for Brad as he made his own progression in his chosen field and it was almost 4 years before he could make it back to the golden beaches of Southern Sri Lanka.
When he finally did return he was shocked to see his old friend. Chatura seemed to have aged 20 years in the time that he had been away. His hair which had been graying and wispy before was completely gone and his belly hung over his belt. In fact his whole body seemed to have swelled, pressing out at every available point. He also seemed to be walking with a hunch like an old man even though his true age was only 39.
What was even more disturbing was the attitude of his friend. He had achieved tremendous success but seemed to be enjoying none of it. When he pressed Chatura he told the story of how one day not too long ago he had discovered his oldest son stealing from the company and how he had to fire him and the two had not spoken since.
Chatura was also very stressed with running multiple businesses and trying to upskill his daughter into the family business. He had been having chest pains for the last month or so and finally went to see his doctor about it.
Concerned, Brad asked what the doctor’s prognosis had been.
Chatura suggested that he step back from the day to day running of the business as it was too much for him and that he should pick a hobby that he could do everyday that would calm him down and relieve his stress.
“Mr Brad. I told him that even after all this I love fishing. So every morning I pull my old canoe out and go out in the bay and fish until I catch something.
Brad nodded quietly, still concerned at the size that Chatura had ballooned out to.
“And what about the rest of your health? Did he advise a change in diet or exercise?”
Chatura smiled and said ”Mr Brad we are still a little backwards when it comes to health here. The doctor said I should eat simple meals. Just eat the fish that I catch and the coconuts that I pluck. He told me I should avoid all the rich foods that I have been eating.”
“There is an old saying in my village that a man will always be healthy for as long as he can climb a coconut tree and pluck from it a coconut. So this is what I have started to try and do everyday now.”
Brad smiled and thought it amazing how life turns out. When he met Cahtura all those years ago his life had been simple. Go out every morning and catch two fish. Climb a coconut tree and get two coconuts and then just eat what he had caught and taken from the tree. Now years later his life had returned to this simple path of doing the same routine but for a different reason.
The moral of this story, if there is such a thing, is to not live your life in the pursuit of someone else’s dream but to tread your own path searching for your own goals.
We always aspire to live like we perceive others’ lives to be. But to be truly happy we need to do what makes us happy and not care too much what others think. Success is internal and not external.
Only we can judge ourselves and whether we are successful or not.
It shouldn’t take a lifetime to figure this out.
Sometimes two fish and two coconuts are all we really need.
The End.
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