There’s a reason why we love the New York Times.
Actually, there are several reasons why anyone should love and read the NYT.
Apart from being the classiest newspaper around, the NYT also comes out with some of the most unexpected stories.
For instance, today’s NYT has a piece on the severe shortage of coconut pluckers in the South Indian state of Kerala.
Now, who’d have thought the NYT would find coconut pluckers in Pettah (a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram) interesting!
The job of a coconut plucker is dangerous and the pluckers sometimes die or, worse for a poor man, get seriously injured like 65-year-old B.Mohan recently did after a steep fall.
And, horror of horrors, the poor coconut plucker damaged his spine in the fall and now lies waiting to die.
Here’s an excerpt from the NYT story:
As he approaches his first tree of the day, S. Mohan presses his calloused palms together and bows his head.
“Oh God, I am climbing the coconut tree,†he whispers. “Protect me from harm.â€
With no safety gear beyond a strap of palm frond tied around his ankles, he launches himself onto the tree’s arcing trunk, which rises dozens of feet into the air. With a swift series of spider-like maneuvers, he is at the top of the tree within seconds, slicing the nuts from their stems with a heavy blade he carries tucked into his loincloth.
New York Times Discovers Kerala’s Coconut Pluckers added by SearchIndia.com on
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When the whole world is talking about 2012…you are interesting in Kerala coconuts..Very patriotic indeed.Hope you are getting well…GOOD LUCK.GOD BLESS YOU
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Yet another cuckoo-nut. 😉
Go and see 2012.Expecting your review!!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Scoot.
Lovely choice of topic by NYT and you!
As kids visiting our native place in Kerala during school vacations, we used to have fun watching Chaathu, our local coconut plucker, go about his job. He would climb the palms with such dexterity that we would be in awe of him. The ease with which he did it would prompt us to try our hand at it, but we would soon find out that it isn’t as easy as it looks, that there is a lot of skill involved, and that working against the pull of gravity is tough.
I learnt sometime back that Chaathu had passed away and that his sons were educated and were not into his line of work.
Chaathu will always live in my memory as this jovial, smiling, betel-leaf chewing guy, who was an Ace climber of the coconut palm! 🙂
SearchIndia.com Responds:
As you may have read in the NYT piece, the job is very dangerous…hence the current generation seems to be shying away from it.
WTF are all our IITs/IIScs doing with all the money that
weyou pour into them? Time for some applied research.I don’t think the climbers would agree with you that their’s is a dangerous job. It’s like telling the trapeze artist his job is dangerous, when in reality it’s just another day at the office for him. I’m sure the case of the injured man in the NYT article is a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence.
The reason why today’s youngsters are not inclined towards the plucker’s job is very obvious and can be summed up in two words — social status.
About alternative ways of plucking coconuts, I’m sure the govt. there will come up with something soon because coconuts are ‘big’ in Kerala.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: It’s like telling the trapeze artist his job is dangerous, when in reality it’s just another day at the office for him
As best as we can recollect the trapeze artists who work under the big top have a safety net below, don’t they?
Read the same article (word by word replica)in NDTV today…… Interesting!!!! who copied who??? or is there a common source????
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Thanks.
You are right.
NDTV does have the same Kerala Coconut story verbatim here.
It’s possible that NDTV may have a sourcing agreement with New York Times.
How shameful that the bearded morons at NDTV have to depend on the New York Times for a story on India.
!Ok OK!! NDTV took the story from NYT!!!!
In my opinion, IITs / IISc have not done a great job in transforming the country into any heaven for research, science and technology. They produce better-skilled coolies 😉 while some stand out and shine.
Yep, the article is good. Apart from this, there are these drainage-cleaners here. They get down through the manhole, clean any blockage, not hesitating to clean any shit. While they do it for their lives, there were few instances that they died because of toxic gases. It has become a usual happening.
Recently Chennai Corporation has brought up automated drainage cleaning vehicles.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: In my opinion, IITs / IISc have not done a great job in transforming the country into any heaven for research, science and technology
As we said earlier, the focus is not on applied research or working on ‘appropriate technology.’
Most likely, they are focused on producing coolies or teachers.
I believe medytrance refers to street artists who perform kind of rope walk, et al. For them, there are no safety measures.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Do they still have such street artists in India?
The article was nice.
I agree with medytrance’s comment that risk is a part of the job, and that for coconut pluckers, it is another day in the office.
While many readers may already know this, I would like to recall the technique used by the pluckers of areca-nut (adike in Kannada, beetel-nut (?) in English), in Malnad area of Karnataka (the Western Ghats). (Perhaps this is the case elsewhere as well).
In districts of Shimoga and North Canara (Karavara), which are the major exporters of areca-nut in India, the pluckers climb on to one areca tree, do the job, and then jump to an adjoining tree. Thats right, jump !!
The areca tree is very slender (20-30 cm in diameter), and once the plucker has done the job on one tree, he sort of leans toward the adjoining tree. He also has a cloth/bark in his hand, which he uses to get a grip on the other tree. In a swift moment, he jumps from one tree and grips the other, at a height of about 30-40 ft.
The trees themselves are planted in an orderly, grid-like manner. An efficient technique, although risky.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: I would like to recall the technique used by the pluckers of areca-nut (adike in Kannada, beetel-nut (?) in English), in Malnad area of Karnataka (the Western Ghats). (Perhaps this is the case elsewhere as well).
In districts of Shimoga and North Canara (Karavara), which are the major exporters of areca-nut in India, the pluckers climb on to one areca tree, do the job, and then jump to an adjoining tree. That’s right, jump !!
Very interesting.
We just checked YouTube to see if there were any videos of arecanut tree climbers. Came a cropper.
2. You write: I would like to recall the technique used ……in Malnad area of Karnataka (the Western Ghats).
Offtopic:
Talking of Malnad, here are two fine Malnad songs, both featuring the ‘Sahasasimha’ (Valiant Lion, ha ha ha):
a) Malenada Henna Mai Banna (Valiant Lion and Kalpana)
b) Malnad Adke Mysore Viledele (Valiant Lion and Bhanupriya)
Seems like there are lots of crouching tigers and hidden dragons in the betel nut plantations of Karnataka. 🙂
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Not to mention the sly foxes. 😉
Guruprasad’s nice description of the betel-nut pluckers reminded me of the bamboo action scenes from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OQw5s2oiqk0
SearchIndia.com Responds:
A work of art.
Woke up late today thanks to all the blogging and commenting last night. Have decided to take leave from work today. Might end up watching a movie in a theater by the end of the day.
How come the dashboard shows 9 comments to be eternally in moderation?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write above: Might end up watching a movie in a theater by the end of the day.
I
From Medytrance
(comment got accidentally deleted and hence we’re reproducing it this way)
Woke up late today thanks to all the blogging and commenting last night. Have decided to take leave from work today. Might end up watching a movie in a theater by the end of the day.
How come the dashboard shows 9 comments to be eternally in moderation?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write above: Might end up watching a movie in a theater by the end of the day.
It’s 9:21 PM ET here and we’re watching Telugu movie Godavari.
Sita has just reached Bhadrachalam following two failures – her textile business has folded and a prospective groom has rejected her because she’s ‘too fast.’ 😉
2. You write: How come the dashboard shows 9 comments to be eternally in moderation?
Got rid of 1. Now down to 8.
The 8 comments in moderation are an odd lot: some comments were meant only for our eyes. Some were kinda dubious.
Then there were other comments in which some regular SI readers asked if they could meet us. But since we are faceless and non-existent, that wouldn’t be possible, would it? 😉
At the same time, we thought it too cruel to say a blunt ‘No.’ So we adopted the P.V. Narasimha Rao principle…defer the decision eternally. Just left those comments in limbo.
Ya, I do remember Narasimha Rao’s ‘moratoriums’.
Any Ajit/Vijay/Kamal ‘fan’atics in the list of people wanting an appointment with you?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Hard to say on the Internet Who’s really Who.
For instance, a medytrance could be a Priyanka Gandhi or a Kamalinee Mukherjee! 😉
… or Rahul Gandhi or Pranab Mukherjee.
Medytrance is a guy.
What’s your speed on the qwerty keyboard? I’ve crossed 120 wpm on typeracer.com.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’re hunt and peck typists….so considerably slower.
You ought to watch Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Khamosh, which released in the early ’80s. It’s a suspense thriller/murder mystery from Bollywood that for a change IS ONE. I remember raving about it to my friends in school. It has your favorite Naseeruddin Shah in it, along with Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Pankaj Kapur and a whole host of the regulars of Hindi parallel cinema.
Now, I don’t think it’s available on Netflix, so either go shopping for it, ask your friends for it, or ask me to send the DVD by post.
Btw, ever wondered why there have been very few suspense thrillers made in Bollywood?
A: Because there is very little chance of repeat audiences for them.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll try and get hold of Khamosh.
BTW, we didn’t like Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s last film Eklavya.
Eklavya received poor reviews in India too. In fact, if I remember right, Anupama Chopra, wife of the director, didn’t give it a very favorable review on her show, The Big Picture, on NDTV.
On-topic: If trapeze artists indeed use safety nets, then I was wrong in comparing the coconut pluckers with them. A safety net would completely eliminate the risk factor for them, while for the CPs there is always a certain degree of risk involved.
However, the method the CPs follow and the aids they use (though these may seem very minimal to the onlooker) to climb up the palm and to perch themselves at the top, reduces the risk to a very large extent.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
It’s been a long time since we watched what happens under the Big Top but vaguely remember seeing the safety net.