I am proud of being a teetotaller. Recently one of my friends said I could not call myself a teetotaller as I had consumed toddy drops in my childhood. At first I couldn’t understand what he meant. And I strolled down my memory lane.
Black palm trees used to be the symbol of the landscape of Kerala’s Palakkad district. The tree was ubiquitous and was celebrated in literature. They grew tall, as if to touch the clouds. On the embankments of all the paddy fields and in all the spacious compounds, there were plenty of these majestic trees which stood with their heads in the skies.
When we used to play on the harvested paddy fields during summer vacations, we could regularly see men climbing palm trees to tap toddy. One after the other, tappers would climb up three or four palm trees and leave for the next cluster. How dexterously they used to climb those tall palms! In earthen pots (muttippaani) tied to their bodies, they would bring down the toddy. A wooden sheath held the tapping knife which was attached to their waists.
After reaching the top of the tree, the tapper would unsheathe his tapping knife and begin to slice the tip of the tender flower clusters. Toddy drops would fall down. We would stand under the tree, look skyward and open our mouths. Sweet and pure toddy drops would fall either on our faces or in our mouths.
There were many palms on the embankments of these paddy fields and the surrounding compounds. Those compounds were spacious and filled with large clusters of bamboos, black palm trees, mango trees, cashewnut trees, and other gigantic trees. Wild creepers were seen even unto the top of these trees. They looked like small forests and yielded many fruits to the birds and us. I have seen in these forests the burrows of foxes and wild lizards (udumbu), nests of squirrels and birds. Nests of weaver birds were seen hanging from the tips of the palm leaves. There were many headless black palm trees as they were struck by lightning. Mynahs and parrots nested in the holes of the headless trunks.
Then large-scale rubber planting started in the district. That sounded the death knell for black palm trees and paddy cultivation. Almost all the trees were eliminated and paddy fields turned into either real estate or rubber estates. Birds that depended on the majestic trees for nesting and paddy cultivation for feeding were gone forever. And toddy tappers too disappeared with the majestic trees.
Sukumaran C V
Email: lscvsuku@gmail.com