LEANING TOWERS OF GOA

 

Cover image by Raizel Dias of Seraulim, Goa. She studies @ Fatima Convent, Margao.

Even a few coconut trees properly planted can make way for chodd malleanchi xeti podd’dot (multi-storied farming). Pepper and pineapple, banana and nutmeg, even cinnamon and clove, are what Nevil Alphonso suggests as value-additions. These crops can support the farmer in the initial years even as he waits for the 8-year period to come to an end before the coconut tree can start bearing fruit.

Nal’lachi Lagvodd (Coconut Cultivation)

Written & Published by Nevil Alphonso (2006)

Pages: 88, Price: Rs 50/-

Sun, sand and surf. And swaying palms. That’s the picture every tourist takes home with him, once his Goan holiday is over. The coconut tree (cocos nucifera) not only sways all along our coastline but is an essential part of every village and the toast of artists and writers alike.  Every part of madd is made use of, and the rendermam’ who climbs it, thrice a day, has been at the heart and art of brewing feni, Goa’s very own drink.

Respected the world over as a tree with ‘a thousand uses’, the 'curved nut' of the self-sown tree has the ability to roll along the ground or float buoyantly and be carried by the tide to 'strike roots' in distant lands and tropical countries and is considered as nature's most valuable gift to the poor.

 

Nevil Alphonso’s Konknni book in Roman script, partly funded by the Goa Konknni Akademi, is down-to-earth and offers useful information and helpful hints to improve coconut cultivation. For persons like me who totally depend on the paddeli (pluckers) to take care of the few coconut trees that surround my house, Nal’lachi Lagvodd is an eye-opener. Even a casual look at the ‘health’ of the coconuts in the panttlem (basket), once they are plucked, can throw up some interesting ‘findings’!

The Banavle (Benaulim) variety is much sought-after in South Goa and in the North it is the Nanora or the Kalangut (Calangute) class which Goans plant. The Banavle variety, Alphonso enlightens us in his foreword, is capable of giving a 150-coconut yield a year per tree, but the average turns out to be a poor 28 coconuts! Just one of the many reasons why I strongly recommend this book should be on our shelves.

Pictures, they say, speak louder than words and Nal’lachi Lagvodd is full of them. With over 30 illustrations and nearly 70 photographs, many of them in colour, leafing through the book is as joyous as sipping a tender coconut. From a traditional and a polybag nursery to the care that has to be taken at the time of digging pits and once the kovate (saplings) are planted, Alphonso uses easy-to-understand Konknni with a glossary at the end of the book to explain in English some of the not-so-familiar words.

Even a few coconut trees properly planted can make way for chodd malleanchi xeti podd’dot (multi-storied farming). Pepper and pineapple, banana and nutmeg, even cinnamon and clove, are what Alphonso suggests as value-additions. These crops can support the farmer in the initial years even as he waits for the 8-year period to come to an end before the coconut tree can start bearing fruit.

Pic: Raizel Dias

Pests and diseases which haunt the tree need proper karbhar (management). Alphonso, a ‘product’ of the Marathwada Xetki Vidhyapit, Parbhani, Maharashtra, has (and rightly so) devoted as many as 20 pages to Kiddicho Karbhar and Rogacho Karbhar. In these chapters, we find that Bhonvor (Rhinoceros bettle) and Rontto (Red palm weevil), which can threaten the tree, can best be ‘trapped’ using a bucket with tiny windows and ‘Pheromone’ bag. One sure way to confirm if the weevil is worrying your tree is simply to put your ear to the trunk in the night. If you hear the kuru-kuru sound, he writes, its time you did something to rid the rontto! Signs to look out for when the tree is afflicted with diseases like Suel, Mudoll and Ganoderma (spread through fungus) and precautions to be taken are also explained.

Like the 'fruit of aspiration', which is offered to Gods and 'broken' at the start of any auspicious occasion, Nal'lachi Lagvodd is Nevil's offering to the Konkani readers. Halinchea vorsamnim paddeli komi zaleat (the number of pluckers has dwindled in recent years), Alphonso informs even as he tells us of ‘trained monkeys’ who do the job in a few countries. If this trend continues, Goans may one day wake up in the morning and find the makodd climbing up the madd, in true paddeli-style!

I have only one worry. With Goa’s forest cover fast disappearing and creatures of the animal kingdom on the run, will we find the monkeys when the time comes?

ENDS

The frond has a friend: the weaver bird! Pic: Raizel Dias

[This review first appeared in Gomantak Times dated August 31, 2009]