Raju Ganapathy

Drama Others

3  

Raju Ganapathy

Drama Others

On the Coffee Trail

On the Coffee Trail

6 mins
167



We got a first hint of Coorg when we sped past the block called Hunsur. We were driving from Bangalore to Ponnampet. Could you believe for a coffee study? Work cum pleasure. I did notice coffee bushes on both sides of the road and ripe red cherries were hanging from the bushes. I also noticed electric fences and wondered why would some one steal the coffee berries. I learnt of the reason in a few days’ time and will come to that soon.

Who ever has not heard of the legendary Sam Manekshaw who just before the advent of the Indo-Pak war of 1971 had famously told Mrs Indira Gandhi that the military was not ready to launch a war with Pakistan and asked for a few months more time? Mrs Gandhi granted his request and rest was history as they say. Sam Manekshaw was perhaps the most famous Kodava (Coorgi) in post-independence era. Into his country I was driving into.

My colleague and I were here for a week to do some preliminary work a base line study related to coffee growers. We had reservation at Ponnampet Sports club, a verdant open space and spacious rooms with tiled roofing reminding one of the God’s own country.

The following day I had met another illustrious son of the Coorg, Brigadier Ponnappa (name changed) who was at the fore front in the defence of the ecology of Coorg. I was surprised to see him with a walker with his right leg wrapped in a bandage. He soon enough explained that it was due to an elephant attack in his very own coffee estate a few months ago, something unheard of in his area until recently.


Ponnappa explained that forest has been very disturbed and wild animals are going astray in search of food and water. These days it is not unusual to hear stories of small herd of elephants coming for an estate stay uninvited. When he was on a walk in the estate a lone young tusker chased after him resulting in his leg fracture. Now it is the turn of the tiger to go astray and attack cattle and as many as 25 cases have been reported in the past few months. It was with shock I read in news paper a few days ago that two deaths have occurred in the area I had visited very recently. The forest department wasn’t sure if the injured tiger had turned man-eater at the time of writing this piece.


Coorg he said is a catchment area of Cauvery the source of sustenance for people in two states of Karnataka and Tamilnadu. This catchment area needs protection. He talked of payment to Kodagu for the ecological services that it renders. Protection of Coorg lies in the hands of Coorgis, how they maintain their life style. Already tourism is creating havoc with rampant destruction of forests and its conversion for tourism. A cursory research in Google revealed that applications over 4000 have been made for home stay with the tourism department, another way to diversify income. However only a few hundreds have been certified. Ponappa commented that tourism foot fall exceeds 3 times over that of entire Coorg population.

He and many coffee planters described that Coorg holds a unique position in that coffee is grown mainly in the shade of native trees. Of course, silver oak is fast replacing native trees thanks to some antiquated laws that permit cutting of silver oak and not native trees, which requires the permission of the forest bureaucracy. Pepper trees are being cultivated by coffee planters as an additional income and hedge against falling coffee prices and that grows fast as vines on silver oak.

The climate change was here to stay at Coorg, as an unwelcome guest. Rains have played truant in 2018 and 2019. A week ago, it was hail storms in mid-February, 2021 in a village in Somwarpet blanketed the coffee estates in snow. The entire coffee crop that was yet to be harvested was lost and so did the coffee in the drying process and not to mention the pepper due for harvest from March. Greta might say that this Disha is the way to go.

When I visited a veteran Mandanna, another senior coffee planter the same story about elephant visiting their estate and climate havoc got repeated. He added that Europeans dominate the Robusta coffee (variety that is widely grown in Coorg) trade as the international prices are always set by the London exchange. Unlike the Indians the Europeans do coffee pe charcha (discussion over coffee) and 70% of our coffee goes for export.

The next day morning as I was sipping my first coffee at the sports club I was ruminating like a cow (our state prefers that we become docile like a cow and not protest on any pretext) of the discussion I had with some planters the previous evening. I wrote up the following verse.

Birds from their nests in a chorus of wake up calls

As if in a competition, thus begins the morning.

Earth in an envelope of the ‘mist’ress, restful

The golden rays of the Sun penetrate the mist

Leaves no doubts in one that the morning belongs to the Sun.


As I sip my coffee the aroma makes a sense

In this coffee country, one doesn't mind the am ’Bush’

Growers count the bushes, not the birds

Pick on its ripe cherry, to the market they ferry.


Cauvery springs from this region, people sustaining of her a legion

Yet the ecology being tampered, by the man who ever wants to be pampered

Nature has her limits, her value, humanity needs to admit

In the cradle of the nature, soon, the humanity will find no nurture.

While the Bangaloreans and Mysoreans drive in droves to Coorg for the nature, all is not well with those who work and live in the coffee estates. Lakshmi, aged 60 was killed by a tiger while she took a time out to answer the call of the nature while picking coffee at a coffee estate. Earlier it was reported that a teenager boy was killed by a tiger. The Forest department was yet to confirm if it was the same tiger or if it had turned into a man-eater. When tigers get injured and unable to hunt wild life they tend to become man-eaters as hunting a man was an easy target.


When a European consumer pays 2.5 pounds for a cup of coffee in a café, the share of the coffee itself amounts to 10 pence and the share of the coffee grower is just 1 pence. The greater share of the price goes towards shop rent, staff costs, profit. Among those in the supply chain the roaster gets a maximum share.

No wonder that Coorg farmers are never a satisfied lot. But unlike the north Indian brethren it would be a wonder if they would ever take to agitation and get sympathy of the coffee drinker.

What must have been the thinking of the Sufi saint Baba Budan who smuggled a few seeds of coffee from Yemen in the 17th century and planted in what is now known as the Baba Budan hills in the neighbouring Chikkamagalur region? Coffee has taken roots and for many like me without a cup of coffee in the morning, day does not kick off.


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