The toddy tapper
At dawn , I met a sturdy toddy tapper, He was a strong,sure-footed man and flexible, Who well-suited to do the risky job rather, And the tools of that job were primitive and stable.
He climbed around fifteen palm trees every day, Whose heights were nearly fifty to sixty feet, And he ascended thrice a day per tree anyway, With simple equipment tied around his waist like seat,
He scaled precariously the tall palm tree to harvest,
And he prepared by fermenting the sap of its flowers,
He climbed dawn and dusk to extract toddy in earnest,
At noon he climbed again to prune the tree fronds for hours ,
He did magic with the palm tree and produced wine,
The tapping labour got a thousand per day merely, Who worked in the lonely place to make a living out of it and dine, Alas, the tapping has no future across the coastal area severely,
The demand for toddy sap dipped very slowly, And the government has banned on toddy tapping too, All their repeated requests fell on deaf ears really, Please allow the abandoned cottage industries to grow and new.
Copyright ©
Balasubramaniyan Venkataramani
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