Meet and drink: Tony D’Souza and the toddy tapper

‘It was the most remarkable encounter of my life.’

It was the most remarkable encounter of my life. It was perhaps more remarkable because no words passed between us: he did not speak English, and I did not speak Tamil. That didn’t matter, because what happened when I met the toddy tapper was beyond words.

We met in the jungle in Sri Lanka. A toddy tapper makes toddy, an alcoholic drink, by climbing to the top of a coconut tree for the sap. It is a dangerous job, walking between the tops of the trees on flimsy tightropes made from coconut fibre. The danger of falling is one reason why there are so few tappers left.

As soon as he saw us coming, the tapper began to climb a tree. We were tourists, a handy source of income, so he climbed for us to take holiday snaps. He climbed right up to the top of the tree. Carefully. Slowly. Hand over hand, placing his feet with care. When he got to the top, he ventured out on one of the tightropes between the trees and hung there for a while, seemingly suspended in mid-air. Then he took out his knife and, holding it aloft, gave us a toothless smile, two yellowing canines protruding from the corners of his mouth. That was the star photo.

As soon as the photo shoot was over, he climbed down and led us to his compound, a clearing in the jungle. In the centre was his accommodation, an odd tent-like hut made of plaited coconut palm, no longer than about ten feet and no higher than five. I went to the door (one end was covered by a removeable leaf panel) and looked inside.

There was a bed in one corner made of leaves. Seeing the sunlight streaming through the holes in the wall, I wondered how he managed the vicious squadrons of mosquitos that had eaten me alive every night. In the other corner was an altar, composed of an old sepia tint of Jesus on a biscuit tin, in front of which was a small earthenware oil lamp, the kind you might see in a museum of ancient artefacts. That was it. There was nothing else in the hut.

Soon it was time to go, and we queued to give him our contributions. As I stood in front of him, he gave me the same smile he had given us earlier. But this was not the cartoonish smile of a toothless man. It was beatific. It’s difficult to explain all these years later. It was a smile of perfect peace. Then I noticed something else: a deep sense of peace seemed to emanate from him – an indescribable sense of contentment that I had never felt from any other human being before or since. In material terms, the toddy tapper had nothing. Yet somehow, he had everything. He had everything, that is, that truly matters. He had peace in his mind, and peace in his heart. I could feel it coming from him. He was at peace with God and at peace with life.

All this happened many years ago, and the toddy tapper is probably dead now. He lives on for me though, because I can never forget him. He showed me, without words, what it means to ‘Walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone. Whereby in them you may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you.’

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