Learn all about date palm jaggery with Amitabh and Nutan in Saudagar

SAUDAGAR (1973). Directed by Sudhendu Roy. With Amitabh Bachchan, Nutan Behl, Padma Khanna, Trilok Kapoor.

Basic plot:
Moti (Amitabh), a gur tapper and trader, loves Phoolbanu (Padma Khanna), a village girl. Unfortunately, he is unable to afford to pay for the maher (dowry/marriage expenses) to her father. So he decides to marry Mahjubhi, a widow who is particularly skilled in the fabrication of jaggery, so that he can extract a lot of work from her without giving up half his profits. Shortly after he saves enough money, he divorces Mahjubhi to marry his sweetheart.

Movies are modern tales from which a lot can be learnt about a country.

Here, I present the ecological angle of Saudagar, a compelling movie that tells us all about the traditional art of jaggery making in Bengal!!

Watch Saudagar with a new ‘eco’ set of lenses!!

The movie is set in Bengal, the land of rivers where the sacred Ganga, Damodar, Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna flow to form the largest alluvial delta (a landform that is created at the mouth of a river) and one of the most fertile regions in the world.

Moti (Amitabh) is a jaggery trader.

Jaggery is a traditional unrefined sugar used in India. It is a wholesome sugar and, unlike refined sugar, it contains lots of minerals.

There are two types of jaggery: the sugarcane jaggery and the palm jaggery.

The palm jaggery is obtained mainly from two types of palm trees:

- the Palmyra PalmTree (Borassus) or toddy palm. It is a tall fan palm very common in India, especially in South India. Its leaves are long, fan-shaped, 2 to 3 m in length and are used for thatching, mats, baskets, fans, hats, umbrellas, and as writing material (a kind of papyrus). The tree also yields many types of food. The fruits of the Palmyra Palm tree are cut open to get small jellylike fruits which have a kind of coconut water inside each of them. A sugary sap called toddy is obtained from the young inflorescence (flowering part of the plant). The toddy is fermented to make a beverage called arrack, or it is boiled to make a crude sugar called palm jaggery.

- the Wild Date Palm, also called the Silver Date Palm (Phoenix Sylvestris) or Khajur, is one of the most common tree of India. It is native to southern Pakistan and most of India. The palm has a crown containing up to 100 leaves of 3 metres long. The sap is tapped and like in the case of the Palmyra palm, it can be fermented into toddy or boiled down to a brown sticky matter.

Every day during the tapping season (4 months), Moti works hard to tap as many trees as possible.

The art of tapping palm trees:

The tapping season is November to February. A single Wild Date palm can yield 20 to 25 kg of jaggery in a season.

Tapping trees is very labor intensive and demands high degree of traditional expertise and indigenous knowledge and skill to guarantee the survival of the tree.

The upper part of the trunk is incised to let the sap run out. The surface is cut in a large V shape and a triangle is removed from the pith. Some container, such as a gourd or a matka (clay pot), is left to collect the draining sap. The sap begins fermenting immediately after collection. To avoid that, slaked lime is being smeared on the pot to prevent fermentation.

The intervention to maintain the sap flow day after day constitutes a severe wound inflicted on the palm. If the daily scarring is carried on too far, the palm can die. This daily scarring also spoils the appearance of the tree as the cuttings make the stem grow in a curiously zigzag fashion.

Moti’s job is to collect the sap and bring it to Mahjubhi (Nutan), a widow who is very skilled in the art of making jaggery.

Once collected, the sap is boiled down for hours in huge karais (cauldrons) over wood or coal stoves. It is said that the secret of a good Gur is in the heating that has to be done by judging expertly the different degrees of cooking to achieve the right texture. The concentrated liquid is then poured into molds (often in coconut shells) to dry and become round flat chunks of Patali Gur. Depending on the mold used, the jaggery comes in different shapes: round discs, cylindrical blocks, round balls and half spheres etc.

In Bengal this jaggery is called ‘Nolen Gur’ and is used as an alternative to sugar in the confection of Bengali sweets. The Nolen Gur Sandesh with a brownish-pink tinge is heavenly and a favourite of all Bengalis.

Will the new wife of Moti be as dedicated and as talented as Mahjubhi??

The Harvest Festivals of India

Ever since primitive man settled down to cultivate his own crops, harvest festivals — thanksgiving celebrations for a successful and abundant harvest — have been carried out throughout the world.


In India, primarily an agrarian society with 70% of population depending on agriculture for their living, the end of a harvest has always been the logical occasion for rejoicing. Most of our festivals have originated as harvest festivals during which farmers thanked Mother Earth for granting them a good crop. Harvests festivals were then given religious meaning by being associated with the local gods and deities, converting the harvest festivities into religious festivals as we celebrate them today. The reaping of the harvest after a lean period was like a new start, a new beginning and therefore New Year celebrations were also associated to many harvest festivals.

Kharif crop harvest festivals are celebrated at the end of the rainy season, after the land has been fertilized with the life-giving monsoon showers and lush green paddy fields cover the land in almost every state of India. Kharif crops are usually sown at the beginning of the rainy season in May-June, the sowing date varying according to the south-west monsoon’s arrival. The Kharif crop is totally dependent on the rainfall and is called a rainfed crop. The harvesting is around Diwali. Kharif is the most important agricultural season of India as most of the country’s agriculture is dependent on rain. It is therefore not a coincidence that Diwali, the festival that celebrates the Kharif harvest, is the foremost festival of India!! The Kharif crops are Jowar, rice, Corn, pulses, groundnut, cotton, soyabean, sugarcane and turmeric.

Diwali is celebrated in October, It is the main Kharif crop harvest festival of India. On the second day of the festival, the worship of Goddess Lakshmi suggests strongly the agrarian origins of Diwali. All over India, rice is the main crop, and Diwali delicacies are prepared from the newly harvested rice.

Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala is celebrated in September. As Kerala is the first state to receive the south-west monsoon, Kerala is the first to reap the benefits of its Kharif crop and therefore the first to celebrate the bountiful harvest of rice.

Rabi crop harvest festivals are celebrated from January onwards. The Rabi crops are sown in October, after the Kharif crop, and harvested in the month of January or later in March or April. The Rabi crop is dependent on availability of irrigation water. That is why, for millions of farmers around India, there is no Rabi crop. Millions of hectares of land remain fallow due to lack of water. The most important Rabi crop is wheat.

In January, in Tamil Nadu, Pongal, the harvest festival, is celebrated by thanking the rain, the sun and the farm animals that have helped in the harvest. On the first day, the Rain God is worshipped. The second day is Surya Pongal, a day to thank the Sun God. The first grain harvested is dedicated to the sun. The Sun is offered a "Pongal" of rice and milk. For that, a kolam is drawn on the floor, at the place where the puja is to be performed. Within the perimeters of kolam, firewood is used to cook the rice. The Pongal, a delicious concoction of rice, moong dal, jaggery and milk is cooked in a new earthenware pot on the open fire. When the newly harvested rice is boiled with milk and water, the overflow from the pot symbolizes the overflowing fields. The third day is Mattu Pongal and on that day the cattle is worshipped.




Coinciding with Pongal are several other important harvest festivals around the country: Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Bihu… then in April comes Baisakhi. The festival is a thanksgiving for a good Rabi harvest (winter wheat crop).

With 2 main agricultural seasons, and a great diversity of ethnic groups and ecoregions, India’s harvest festivals are innumerable. Have you heard of Skangsol, the harvest festival of Ladakh? What about Wangala, the harvest festival celebrated in Meghalaya in honour of Saljong, the Sun-God of fertility? What about Maghe Parab festival, the most important harvest festival of the Ho, Oraon and Kol? And what about the Tusu tribal harvest festival of the Santhals in South Bengal??

Support the Honey Gatherers

Today traditional communities of honey gatherers are facing an increasing pressure from the modern world. Their lifestyle is in danger of vanishing, their traditional knowledge is getting lost, and their race is on the verge of extinction.

1) Honey Gatherers are loosing access to the forest

Honey gatherers are threatened by deforestation and developmental projects (like wildlife sanctuaries, dams…) that displace them in the name of progress.

After displacement, the communities that have lived in the tropical forests for thousands of years loose their access to the forest and with it the right to practice their profession, the activity that has been their way of survival.

In many countries of Asia, the honey gatherers have to buy a permit (issued by the forestry department) that gives them the right to gather honey during the season. High fees stop many from joining the legal harvesters. More and more of them are forced to enter the forest illegally. That has given rise to poaching. For legal Honey Gatherers, that means less and less combs to harvest. Moreover, poachers are ruled by greed and not by sustainability. They want instant profits and are not concerned about future harvests. They are contributing to the devastation of beehives.

In certain countries, honey gathering is altogether prohibited by law.

2) Honey gatherers are wrongly blamed for unsustainable practices

They are criticized for their crude honey collection methods that damage hives and destroy the bee populations. They are blamed for burning hives (they don’t burn hive but smoke them) and as a result the number of beehives is coming down drastically. They are held responsible of forest fires.

All communities of traditional honey gatherers across the world possess techniques of bee management that are sustainable. They all harvest honey only when the combs are filled. They maintain a taboo on cutting the entire bee comb. They never remove the whole comb to ensure a fast recovery for the bee colony. They cut only the part of the comb that stores honey and leave behind the brood comb to ensure bees can start building their nest anew. That guarantees a higher survival rate of colonies and good future harvests.

Honey gatherers have always lived from the produce of the forest. They are therefore most careful not to harm it. Had they been careless about the sustainability of their honey harvesting techniques and methods, they wouldn’t have survived!!

Today poverty is forcing honey gatherers to go against their own sustainable traditions to carry on. To compete with the poachers, to recover the fees they pay to the forestry department, to make their job profitable, honey gatherers are forced to forget about sustainability and resort to slice off the whole comb to get as much honey and wax as possible to increase their income.

3) Honey gatherers don’t get the right price for their honey…

Honey collectors are rarely organized to market their products and get the right price for their labour. Their honey has the potential to be marketed as ‘organic honey’ and receive a better price.


The Honey Gatherers have to be supported:

>>> to reinforce their traditional knowledge and sustainable practices;
>>> to revive the indigenous honeybee populations that are so important for the health of our agriculture and forests.

For more information read: Preserving the biodiversity of wild bees and supporting the traditional Honey Gatherers

The Honey Gatherers of India

The Honey hunters of India are usually Adivasis (tribals) that have always been dependent on the forest for survival. Due to prolonged isolation over the years, they have developed their own traditions and lifestyles that are most adapted and in tune with the environment.

The Mowalis

The Mowalis are the honey gatherers of Sunderbans. Mou in Bengali means honey.

In the month of April, the honey collectors get ready for their jungle trip. During the whole expedition, the collectors will live on boat with a good stock of food supplies (rice, salt, oil…).

Most important things the Mowalis have to carry are the 5 items necessary for honey collection:

the dhama or recipient to carry the dislodged hive
the daa or indigenous knives
the karu or smoke torch made out of dried golpata (mangrove palm leaves)
the gamchas or towels to wrap the head
the motkas, the pitcher-like earthen pots to store the honey



Before leaving for the expedition, the honey collectors make offerings to the goddess Bonbibi to invoke her protection. Bonbibi is popular amongst Hindus as well as Muslims. She is a wild-eyed giant woman. According to the local legends, she resides in the jungle. She is said to possess miraculous powers to protect people from the notorious Royal Bengal tiger. The belief in Bonbibi is most important to help the honey gatherers overcome their fears and face dangers. Therefore the Mowalis worship Bonbibi before leaving for the jungle but also after returning safe from their expedition.

Honey collecting is a team work. The Mowalis go to forest by boats. Every team consists of 6/7 members that will share a boat. While 6 men will comb the jungle in search of honey, one man remains on the boat to blow the horn and indicate others how far they are from him. He is a human compass that prevents honey gatherers from getting lost. He also has the duty of cooking and taking care of the boat.

Few of the survival tactics of the Mowalis:
- Before going to jungle, the young Mowalis undergo a complete training;
- In the jungle, the Mowalis check for tiger pugmarks. They know to read whether they are fresh or old;
- After dissipating the bees with the smoke torch, the Mowalis work extremely fast to remove the comb before the bees start attacking;
- For the bee stings and other wounds, the Mowalis collect medicinal plants from the jungle;
- To be fit for several hours of walk at a stretch, the Mowalis avoid overeating. For that, they eat one leg up!!

Video: Bangladesh Honey Hunting. A trailer showing a dangerous Honey Hunt in Sunderbans.




Video: Wild bees. Traditional Honey Harvesting (of Apis dorsata) in Cambodia. See how the smoke torch is made, how the bees are dispersed, and how the comb is cut and rolled like a dosa!!




The Jenu Kurubas of South India

The Jenu Kurubas are the honey gatherers of South India. The word "jenu" means "honey" in Kannada, the local language and “kuruba” means “caste”. The Jenu Kurubas have always lived in the forest and are probably the original inhabitants of the forests of the Western Ghats. They inhabit the forest area that is at the intersection of 3 states: Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Jenu Kurubas know all about the different varieties of honey, the season and time it has to be collected, and the techniques to gather it as efficiently as possible. The Jenu Kurubas have always roamed the forests in search of honey and are famous for their skill in collecting honey from wild beehives. During the honey season that lasts from April to July, the men form groups (honey gathering is a collective enterprise) and live for 2-3 days in the forest. Though honey collection is a hazardous activity because of the wild animals like bears and elephants that are also fond of honey, and of course because of poisonous snake bites, the Jenu Kurubas are fearless about penetrating the deep inaccessible jungles. Their fearlessness comes from an amazing knowledge of the forest that helps them survive. Kurubas are not only excellent tree climbers; they are also excellent rock climbers. They collect honey from bee colonies situated in the most dangerous sections of rock cliffs. To reach honey combs that are inaccessible, Kurubas take help of bamboo poles, scaffoldings, ropes and pulleys. Like alpinists, they do rock climbing while being held with ropes to reach as close as possible to the hives. Like Mowalis they use smoking torches to calm the bees.

The best honey they collect is called Hejjenu. It has to be collected during the rainy season and after sunset when there is total darkness. Climbing trees during the rainy season and that too in the dark is of course not something everybody can do! That is why very few people other than the Kurubas dare to hunt honey combs.

Like Mowalis, the Kurubas never remove the full comb. They always take care to leave a chunk of the comb big enough to let the bee colony recover. Like other forest tribals, Kurubas follow traditions and rules that respect the environment. Certain rocks are considered sacred and Kurubas never touch to the combs situated on those cliffs. Knowingly or unknowingly their beliefs have evolved as sustainable ways to preserve the biodiversity and safeguard the environment.

Video by Keystone: Honey Hunters of southern India




The Rai people from Nepal

The Rai are the honey gatherers of the Himalayas in Nepal. The honey season is twice a year. The men harvest honey from the combs of the giant rock bee (Apis laboriosa) hanging to the steep cliffs of the highest mountains in the world.

Like the Mowalis, the harvest starts with prayers to invoke the gods and ask for their protection. Honey hunting whether in the inhospitable jungles of Sunderbans, in the deep forests of South or on the steep cliffs of the Himalayas, is one the riskiest profession in the world and need the support of supernatural forces obtained from prayers and rituals.

Like most other honey gatherers of the world, the Rai have very little contact with the outside world and live from the produce of the forested foothills of the Himalayas.


Video: Honey Hunters of Nepal.

The Sunderbans

The Sunderbans is an evergreen mangrove forest set in the largest estuarine delta of the world. In the Bay of Bengal, the mighty river Ganges, joined by the Brahmaputra and the Meghna rivers split into numerous creeks and channels like the branches of a tree as they flow into the Indian Ocean.

The Sunderbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world. Sunderbans means literally, the Beautiful Forest. The name Sunderbans also refers to the Sundari tree, one of the main trees that grow on the islands and sandbars.

Unlike world’s most mangroves that are saline water forest, Sunderbans is a fresh water mangrove.

What are mangroves?



Mangroves are tropical trees and shrubs that inhabit tidal marshes and coastal habitats. Because the roots of mangrove trees are anchored in mud that is oxygen poor, mangrove trees have difficulty obtaining an adequate supply of oxygen.


Mangrove trees have adapted to the swampy environment by developing different kinds of roots. In Red Mangroves, trees have prop roots that prop the tree above the water level with stilt roots.




In Black Mangroves, trees have breathing tubes called pneumatophores or respiratory roots that protrude upward from horizontal mangrove roots. These slender roots that stick out of the mud like picks, serve as the tree’s respiratory organs, carrying oxygen to the buried roots.


Sundarbans is extremely rich in biodiversity and is one of the biodiversity hotspot of our planet. It has been declared a World Heritage Site. One square kilometer of Sundarbans contains more species than the whole of North America put together. It is rich in flora: timber and non-timber species, varieties of orchids, medicinal plants… Nipah, the Mangrove Palm, called Gol Pata in Bengali, is one of the most important trees that make the botanical wealth of the mangroves. Lots of people living at the fringe of the Sunderbans survive on the produce of the forest.


Sunderbans equally supports a rich fauna: 200 species of fish, three varieties of dolphins, sharks, whales, shrimps, tiger prawns… On the mudflats, large Estuarine Crocodiles bask in the sun while water monitor lizards slowly drag their bulky body on short legs. The fame of Sunderbans comes from its big cat: the Royal Bengal Tiger. It is possible that within 15 years, tigers will disappear from the wild. Sunderbans could be then the last abode of this cat in the world. The tiger of Sunderbans has the particularly bad reputation of being a man-eater. Every year, the tiger kills an average of 40 people. The fierceness of the Sunderban tiger is explained by the high salinity of the water that causes increased aggression.

Video: 7 wonders of India: Sunderbans




The ecological health of Sunderbans is in decline:

More and more people are entering the Sunderbans forest and depleting the resources of the mangroves through fishing, collection of honey and fuelwood/timber for their livelihood.

The salinity is increasing (now almost as saline as the deep sea) due to water withdrawal upstream. Rivers like Ganga are being emptied to irrigate the plains and support the thirsty hybrid seeds of the Green Revolution. This has resulted in a loss of fresh water supply in the Bay of Bengal. Marine mammals are now more and more seen in the area. Species that are not saline tolerant are disappearing.

With climate change, the sea level is likely to go up by around 50+ cms in next fifty years. That will result in increase of the salinity and in the submergence of a great part of the mangrove forest. With the disappearance of the belt of mangrove forest that provides protection against the fury of cyclonic storms, hurricanes and tsunamis, the region will see an increase in the number and the intensity of weather related catastrophes.

Video: WWF-India: Sundarbans Future Imperfect

Bees of India

India is the centre of origin of honeybee species.

The four honeybees of India are:

Apis florae, the Little bee, also called the Dwarf honeybee, is a wild bee, little bigger than a mosquito, found in South India. Apis florae is a primitive bee that builds small (hand size) combs on branches of shrubs or small trees.

Apis cerana, the Asiatic honey bee, is also called the Eastern honey bee. Like the Western honeybee (Apis Mellifera), it is sometimes domesticated and used in apiculture, mostly in wooden boxes. In the wild, it prefers to nest in small spaces like tree hollows…It is a bee very similar to the Western honeybee.

Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa, also called Rock bees or Giant bees, are the largest honeybee species in the world (nearly 1 inch). Rock bees usually construct huge, monstrous, vertical wax combs of 2-3 metres that hang to the thick branch of a tree, a rock cliff or a building structure (like Taj Mahal). Recently it has been shown that these bees come back to the same nest site year after year (workers being replaced in the process). These giant bees are more aggressive than the European honeybee (Apis meliifera).

In India, the most common honeybee is Apis dorsata. It contributes nearly 75% of the total honey production of India. The honey of Apis dorsata is not ‘kept’ like the honey of Apis mellifera. It is hunted. Honey hunting is done on rocks and trees by tribals.

Video: Giant honey bees 'Life in the Undergrowth'.
Sir David Attenborough visits Malaysia to take a closer look at the life of the world's largest honey bees (Apis dorsata).

In India, honey has always been considered a sacred substance, the food of the gods, the nectar of immortality. Vishnu, Krishna and Indra are born from nectar and are therefore called Madhava and their symbol is the bee. That explains why Vishnu is often depicted as a blue bee resting on a lotus flower while Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, has a blue bee in the middle of his forehead. Shiva, the God of destruction, is also known as “Madheri”, the suave one and is represented as a triangle surmounted by a bee. In Indian mythology, goddesses frequently turn into bees to fight off demons and cleanse the land.

The Vedas contain many references to pollen, honey and bees. The Atman, present inside all of us, is compared to the bee hidden inside a lotus flower.

Being sacred, honey enters in many religious rituals of the Hindus. Honey is thrown into a well before the water is used. Guests are received with honey. And during the birth ceremony, the father of the child is supposed to introduce honey into the mouth of the infant to wish him good fortune.

Cuisines of India

Each state, having its own unique climate, geography, and natural resources, has evolved its own unparalleled food culture.

In the desert of Rajasthan, where fresh vegetables are scarce, the cuisine is based on dried ingredients such as gram floor (besan), dried lentils, dried beans (ker)… Instead of water which is limited in arid lands, Rajasthanis prefer to cook with curd or buttermilk. Not surprising that the most famous recipes of Rajasthan are khata, gatta ki sabzi, pakodi, Bajia…

In Bengal, a land irrigated by countless rivers, ponds and lakes, fish is the staple food. It is said that even Brahmins eat fish!!

In Kerala where coconuts grow in abundance, grated coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil are widely used. South-Indians are primarily rice eaters as South produces lots of rice. Not surprising to find in South thousands of ways to prepare rice: idli, Idiyappam, Dosa, Uttapam, Paalappam, Puttu…

In the cold desert of Ladakh where precipitations are less than in the Thar Desert, people’s diet is based on barley and Ladakhis have half a dozen different ways of cooking barley. They roast it and grind it into flour to be mixed with any liquid. It makes an instant food. They also ferment barley to make a brew… Ladakhis have yaks that produce very rich milk. With it, they make butter and cheese (churpe). Ladakh is the only region of India that produces cheese traditionally. Most Ladakhis eat meat because in – 20C, it would be difficult to survive without it.