GOD’S OWN BANANA REPUBLIC

 

29. GOD’S OWN BANANA REPUBLIC

He had taken charge as the Headmaster of a village school. He was a very strict person and was fond of giving his advice, not only to children but to all and sundry. Whether they needed the advice or not. And if anyone erred he was there to admonish and correct.

On the way to school he used to see a young man whiling away his time in front of a two- storey building, doing absolutely nothing, except for smoking cigarette after cigarette. A worthless person, he thought.

The master decided to give him a piece of advice. ‘What do you gain by smoking cigarette after cigarette like this?’ He asked.

‘Just for the fun of it,’ the young man replied.

‘How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?’

‘Five packets. ’

‘For how many years have you been smoking?’

‘Twenty years. ’

‘With the money spent you could have purchased this building. ’

‘Do you smoke, Sir? the youth asked back.

‘No,’ said the master. t you, s needed the advice or not.a Paniker did, a plantain butcher.one anish the image of the plantain leaf laid out for fe

‘Did you purchase this building?’

‘No. ’

‘Well, then, I purchased this building last week. ’

The Headmaster who chose to write off the youth as worthless as a discarded banana did not realise that the best anti-dote to smoking was banana itself. This was something that scientists had found out after extensive research. It had been established that when people who kick the smoking habit find the urge to smoking too much to bear, the best remedy to kill that urge was to occasionally eat plantain fruits. The reason for this was that the B-12 vitamin and elements like potassium and magnesium in the plantain fruit act as a deterrent to the smoking urge.

The plantain fruit is said to have wonderful medicinal properties. Just two plantain fruits are enough to make an anaemic pregnant woman to feel the difference. Plantain has the capacity to enhance the level of haemoglobin in blood. And it is the ideal food for those with hypertension. The reason for this is that it has a high level of potasssium and low level of salt in it. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States is known for its stringent criteria relating to maintenance of high quality in the case of drugs. The FDA has officially permitted the publication of advertisements relating to the medicinal properties of plantain fruit.

Obesity and its attendant side effects are posing a major problem to the youth who spend much of their time in front of computers. Studies conducted by the Institute of Psychology, Austria, have established that the best way to overcome this is to eat a plantain fruit every two hours. Another finding is that plantain can diminish mental tension because of the abundance of Vitamin B in it. It is also a good medicine for those suffering from psychochondria. Medical science has even proved that if eating the plantain is taken up as a habit, the possibility of death due to stroke can be considerably reduced.

 People born and brought up in the rural areas do know the value of the plantain fruit. It is when the children gambol through the plantain groves with their golden bunches, picking wild flowers and catching butterflies that their minds awaken to the ebullience of the vacation days. For them the memories of sucking nectar from the plantain flowers will remain forever as the fondest recollection of their childhood days. When there is a drizzle one need not run to the house to fetch an umbrella. All that is needed is to take out a leaf of the plantain for use as a makeshift umbrella. While entering the farm enclosure for native banana, it is fun for the kids to mentally calculate the number of fruits in each bunch and when the calculation goes wrong, count over and over again. For small festivities all that is required for decoration are parts of the plantain plant like the unripe fruits, the plantain leaf and the plantain shoot. To hasten ripening of the fruit we may keep the raw bunches in a smoke filled grain storage structure, pathayam. If we cut the banana into slices and fry them in oil we get crisp and tasty banana chips. Raw banana is a favoured ingredient in the making of many traditional recipes favoured by the grandma.

Plantain fruits are essential for religious rituals. Banana fry will make the evening tea a more attractive proposition. For a further improvement there can be banana split also. Your son coming home from school will like banana shake. For breakfast what better items are there other than steam bread (puttu) with boiled banana. When children go on picnics, grandmas don’t forget to fill up tins of banana chips for them.

When you need some money all you need is to cut down plantain fruits from ten plants in the farm and send them to the market. And the remains of the plants could be put in the pits to serve as manure for the next crop. And plantain is not mere plantain. What all shapes, what all colours and what different tastes!

However, we cannot claim monopoly over plantains. It has been substantiated that the plantain originated in the Indo-Malaysian region. It reached Europe in the tenth century AD. The Portuguese took it to South America. Banana is planted in most of the tropical regions. In world production of fruits banana occupies the fourth place, after grapes, orange and apple. And India leads other countries in Asia in banana cultivation.

Almost all parts of the plantain plant can be used both as food for humans and as cattle feed. The uses are different in different countries. Some strange customs relating to it are noteworthy. A practice in Polynesia is one such. They make a pit in the ground, line it with plantain leaves and stack it up with peeled off fruits. After that they cover the pit with plantain shoots and other remains and earth. After a few days they open the pit to take out the ripe and fermented fruits. The ‘masi’ so made is a favourite food of the Polynesians.

In Africa they make beer and wine out of plantain fruits. The Tropical Products Research Institute in London has developed the technology for the manufacture of a special kind of vinegar from the remains of the palntain plants. Cattle feed and feed for poultry and pigs are also made from plantains.

In Philippines garments made of ‘agna’ fabric, worn by both men and women, are made out of fibre from plantains. In Sri Lanka plantain fibre is used in the making of footwear. The trunk of the plantain plant, the shoot and the fiber from it are used in many ways for many purposes. In Kerala these parts are used for making pulp for the manufacture of craft paper. Technology is also available for the making of high quality paper using the plantain fibre and the skin of arecanut.

But it is only plantain that can give denizens of God’s own country a feeling which nothing else can give. White rice on plantain leaf laid out for a feast is an image that opens up the doors of nostalgia for any Malayalee. Even if the floral patterns of Onam, the craze for caparisoned elephants, paddy cultivation, all vanish, this image of the plantain leaf with white rice on it will never fade from his memory.  With more than a hundred variety of colorful and tasty plantains, Kerala can rightly be termed God’s own banana republic.