Daily grub: Sangkaran, watching as a squirrel scurries up tree with a large piece of freshly scooped coconut flesh. — LIM BENG TATT/The Star
GEORGE TOWN: Man’s best friend is a ... squirrel. At least seven of them.
The tale of coconut juice seller S. Sangkaran and how he struck a “friendship” with a squirrel began about six months ago.
One rodent had clambered down a tree near Sangkaran and apparently stared at him.
He decided then to place a few pieces of coconut flesh on the top of an umbrella at his coconut juice stand.
And that was the start of a friendship between him and what might possibly be the entire squirrel community in the Macallum Street Ghaut area.
More and more squirrels visited him daily until he finally tied a feeding bowl to a tree.
Ever since then, he can recognise seven of them going to the bowl to get their daily snack.
“Sometimes, I am so busy with work that I forget to fill the bowl. One of them would climb down the tree beside me and stare at me,” he said.
Sangkaran, 60, said his supply of coconut flesh came from customers who only wanted the juice.
To them, coconut water is “cooling” but the flesh is “heaty”.
“They do not want me to scoop out the flesh for them. To me, it seems such a waste to throw it away, so I am happy to give it to the squirrels,” he said.
The squirrels, he said, could polish off the flesh of two to three coconuts each day.
The feeding bowl, which is next to a bus stop opposite a Chinese primary school, has somewhat become a public attraction.
It is now a squirrel-watching spot for the local community.
