Removing fibres by running a thread through the dough made from pandanus pulp.
| Photo Credit: Rishika Pardikar
“Can you video call me? Mummy is making pandanus. I will show it to you,” Solomie Joora (38) tells me over a phone call. “I’ll come there?” “Yes, come.”
Joora is a Nicobarese from Great Nicobar island. She lives in the tribal colony in Rajiv Nagar, where the community is preparing for Republic Day events. She is originally from Pulobha but was resettled, as were many others, by the government after the 2004 tsunami. Pulobha is located in the southern region of the island while Rajiv Nagar is located on the east.
Women are peeling, steaming, and removing the fibre from pandanus fruits, men are making handicrafts like mini versions of hodi (their traditional boat), and a group of women and men are practising traditional dances. Last year, the hodi received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag.
Solomie with her mother who is scooping pandanus pulp with a shell.
| Photo Credit:
Rishika Pardikar
“For us, Republic Day is a platform to show our food, dance, and handicrafts,” Joora says. We are sitting in her mother’s home, eating steamed bananas flavoured with coconut milk.
Preparations began on January 21. Cooking pandanus is a slow and laborious process, as the fruit is hard and fibrous. It is steamed, the pulp is scooped out with sea shells which are called Kingainh in the Nicobarese language, and the fibres are carefully removed with a thread. It is then steamed again overnight. The final dish is called larop, served with pork, chicken, or fish when the stalls are set up on January 26.
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“We mostly eat it with pork,” Joora says. “On Republic Day, we wear our [traditional] dress. It’s a simple dress… like what I am wearing now. Like what they wear in Nagaland and Assam, but a little different. We play sports… volleyball, tug of war. We also have a traditional game called harah. Nowadays, no one plays harah. Only volleyball.”
For some, Republic Day means work. The administration depends on the Nicobarese community to showcase their culture to make the day more interesting. Daytime events primarily consist of parades, speeches, and award ceremonies. The evening is when stalls are put up for food, handicrafts, songs, and dances.
Freshly harvested pandanus fruits. Cooking pandanus is a slow and laborious process, as the fruit is hard and fibrous.
| Photo Credit:
Rishika Pardikar
The settler community on the island also participates. Punjabi men are busy practising bhangra, and the women giddha. The Ranchi community is also showcasing their dances, I am told.
The ground where the events are held is being prepared with coloured lighting.
Back at the tribal colony, we hear singing and dancing from the home next door. The steps are audible because the floor is bamboo on stilts. “We get to know whether or not their steps are synchronised,” Joora observes. A hen is laying eggs in a cosy tray by the side of the room.
Harvesting pandanus is no easy task either. The women say they can gather other vegetables and fruits from the forest, but for pandanus, they have to depend on the men to climb the trees.
The making of handicrafts.
| Photo Credit:
Rishika Pardikar
Another challenge is forest department restrictions. The community speaks of pandanus trees their forefathers planted along beaches such as B-Quarry, which is likely the most dense pandanus plantation in the revenue area of the island. In the Nicobarese language, the B-Quarry beach is named Auk Rafaiynh. The forest department restricts them from harvesting fruits from the trees here, asking, “If you take the fruits, what will monkeys eat?”
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The leaves of the pandanus tree are used to make mats, which also received a GI tag last year. Researchers say that, on the one hand, the administration proudly advertises GI-tagged Nicobarese cultural motifs, while on the other, they bully the people who access fruits that once used to be their staple food.
Joora’s mother invites me to their home on January 25. “What is happening on that day?” I ask. “Mummy is making a sweet from bananas. It’s like halwa. You come.”
Rishika Pardikar is an environment reporter based in Bengaluru who covers science, law, and policy.
