ROAD LESS TAKEN

Climbing a 150 feet tall palm tree, without any machinery aid is truly a challenging task for anyone. But, it is a daily routine for 30 years old Chinnappan, who is a palm wine (Padhaneer in Tamil) tapper by profession. He climbs four trees in a day, to earn his livelihood, which is about 600 feet up and down.  No wonder, this is considered to be one of the toughest jobs in the entire world.   Being a seasonal employment, palm wine tapping brings only a meager income to his family. Hence, he has to seek another job during rest of the months of the year, to run his family. After enforcing a ban on tapping toddy, which is a fermented form of the sap, this business has lost its charm and enthusiasm. Hence, to prevent the sap from fermentation, quicklime is applied inside the mud pot that is fastened to the palm flower. Though his counterparts in the neighboring states, extract toddy without any problems, it is an illegal affair across the state of Tamil Nadu. The reasons ...

To be honest, I am not an admirer of fervent patriotism. But, the following incident comes to my mind whenever we celebrate Teacher’s day in our country. While I was studying tenth standard, our class used to sit for evening studies in our school accompanied by a teacher. One day, a meeting was organized by Human Rights Commission in our campus, and we were studying inside the class supervised by our teacher, Fathima. The meeting was about to conclude and it was customary to end the public meeting with the National Anthem. When they began singing the Anthem, our teacher stood up still in her position paying the reverence to it. As the meeting took place outside the classroom, none of us bothered to pay any attention. Quite baffled by her action, some of us giggled, some were astounded by her staunch patriotism, some felt guilty and some did not react at all. Unperturbed by the commotion among the students, she stood immobile until the end without flinching a bit.   A teach...