Rice and Our Culture

 “On each rice corn, the name of the person entitled to eat the same is engraved”¹

Do you know what the words, ‘Honda’ and ‘Toyota’ mean? I am told they mean Paddy fields! When I was in Hong Kong and China, I was surprised to find that, like us Malayalees, they drink 'Congee' and call it so.

There is no need to emphasize the relation we Keralites have with rice. It is the staple food of Keralites along with Coconut. We cannot live without these two, though recently due to globalization of tastes, our food habits are changing. When we travel back from New Delhi, in ‘Kerala Express’, we eagerly wait for the Train to cross the border of State of Andhra Pradesh, so we get rice and curd! That is how we are attached to rice. Our Govt is forced to sell rice at Rs 1/- a Kg to obviate poverty, when a Kg of branded ‘Matta’ rice costs up to Rs 42/- (1USD = Rs 60)

 Recently I had a chance to go through the history of rice. The prompt was a small article written by V Mithran in Malayala Manorama Daily, particularly “Metro Manorama –Rasagula” on September 22, 2012.

According to Irfan Habeeb, historian, who wrote “Farmers in Indian History”, India first cultivated rice during 2000 B C. It is believed that China raised paddy 6500 years ago. In England, the word ‘rice’ was used for the first time probably in the 13^th Century. Science called it ‘Oriza Sativa’. The word came from the Latin word, ‘Orisi’. According to Historians, this came from ‘Arisi’ in Tamil! The legend has it that, in the Kurukshetra War, the Chera King of Kerala participated and he was in charge of supplying food to both sides, Kauravas and Pandavas.

We know that we had our “Nellaras” or three large rice sources in Palghat, Kuttanad and Nachinad.

In Kuttanad, It was late Joseph Muricken of Kavalam who acted as ‘Lord Parasurama’ to retrieve the 2150 acres of paddy fields, 3 Metres below sea level, from Vembanad lake.

According to V Sankaran Nair, who wrote the book, “Nellum Samskrithiyum” (Rice and Culture), ‘Nanchinad’ came from the word, ‘Nanchil’, which means ‘Njengol’ or ‘Langalam’ in Sanskrit, or ‘Kalappa’ in Malayalam -used to plough rice fields. He tries to establish that in human history, rice was first cultivated in Nanchinad. It is supported by the view of Lou Vevanchun, a Soviet scholar. The birth day of rice is celebrated in the day Makam in Kanni Rasi in Kollavarsham, the Malayalam Calendar. According to him, it is also related to our Goddess ‘Kanya Kumari’ at the southern tip of India.

Recently we have been forced to quit rice farming. Large tracts of rice fields are left idle or are being converted for commercial purposes. Illegal or reckless sand mining has transformed paddy fields into water logged deep pools. In Aranmula and Idukky, Airports are proposed threatening the extinction of rice cultivation. Those who raised the slogan “the rice fields we harvest will be ours one day” have moved onto blue and white collar jobs and today we are unable to do manual jobs. Labour comes from Bihar, Bengal or even Bangladesh!
In India, the State of West Bengal stands top with 15.80% and State of Andhra Pradesh comes second with 12.71% in rice production. Today Rice comes for us from the State of Andhra Pradesh! We are not in the first 10 rice producing States.²

The State of Kerala ranks Seventeenth in area of cultivation among the states of India. Kerala is a deficient state in rice production. While the estimated requirement of rice for the state is 35-40 lakhs t/year, it produces less than one-fifth of its requirement.³ (Lakh = 1/10 million)

Years	Area (Lakh ha)	Production (Lakh tonnes)	Productivity (Kg)
1960-61	7.90	10.68	1,371.00
2001-02	3.22	7.03	2,182.00
2009-10	2.34	6.25	2,671.00

The share of rice in the total cropped area also showed a steep decline ie, from 33.2 percent in 1960-61 to 12.01 percent in 2003-04. Productivity is high because of the increase in cycles and not because of any increase in yield!

This is a matter of great concern. What shall happen if there is a famine? We must do a lot of introspection.

[Adapted from a Speech in 2012 prepared for Project VII- Competent Communication Manual- Toastmasters International and published in ‘gather’- November 2012]

References:

1. A saying –Kahlil Gibran? Quran?

2. (Source: Maps of India/06.01.2012)

3. (Source: Rice Knowledge Management Portal RKMP)/ [S. Leena Kumari, Professor & Head, Rice Research Station, Monkompu, Thekkekkara P.O.Alleppey District. Kerala 688 503]

4. Nellum Samskrithiyum- V Sankaran Nair- Bhasha Institute, Kerala