Women Empowerment and Sugar cane???

Yes ! lets see how and where the link comes through 

And so we bid farewell to the Sankraanti/ pongal festival for a year. There we gave away old clothes on the Boghi day, we thanked the Sun God for a good harvest (sadly.. whatso ever in today’s day of middle men squandering the rightful return a farmer is due to get, that which he does not get! ). We allow you to say and tell ourselves too with your blessings ‘badavaa, naan madugdhange iru’ !!

Kids and elders alike got to relish all the naivedhyas that were shown to you Sun God , just for a minute!! And the family relished all of it. Then we prayed for our brothers, dads and uncles by a small custom thats done in the wee hours of the next morning after Pongal. Feeding food in style to the crows thus!

Wait, now women get our share too! For the festival does leave a residue behind!! Two Long Sugar Canes !! Right! Now in villages and a few houses in cities, there are people who would just chew away the skin and relish a one ft long piece over a family gapshap. But here, what do we women choose to do with them?

Group A - Uh.. how do I cut it, I need the yester year’s aruvaa manai ( the wooden based , curved sickle edge shaped cutter that ended with a coconut grater at the top! )I don’t have it so I will let the maid cut it for me, give her most of it and get my (strong daanth wale ) family members to enjoy them too. Then the scene unfolds where the maid gets to take away one, but within her self, we can feel the maid cursing us for giving that extra job of scraping the skin and cutting them into small pieces. We better pay her an extra buck for, she would just give away that other sugar cane to any friend of hers she’s gonna spot on the road. Am sure she would not want to go thru the hazzle of cutting them all over again for a drunkard husband who just hit her ten days ago for a few hundreds to spill out over his bar sessions!! :-P.

Group B – No time to worry about it, give it away to my maid, not my favourite either. Eeks that mouth ulcer it gives me when I get greedy .. Let me resist!

c. Group C – Ah , that looks so tempting.. all my life my mom / granny / aunt someone did the honors and I was able to relish its taste. I so want all of us to enjoy it the same way too! But the task of cutting them uh!! There goes my motivation down the drain ! What do I do??

Here’s some help for the Group C! and here’s what I do.

1. Take a small part of it for your taste buds to chew and eat. Cutting and peeling them if done the way shown in the picture is no herculian task! For you could proudly treat this spot too where the ‘literal’ Women ‘En’ Power is also Meant to be used ! eh?  All you need to do is keep edging the knife to the top corner of the cut piece and keep slitting it downward at the same time twisting the knife a bit so the peel comes off actually pretty easily . Cutting the juicey stem part comes easy. You could make smaller cubes for your kiddo and teach him how its relished! (for those of you who thought of this process to be a taboo! )

2. Get the rest of the canes to a sugar cane juice cart vendor, take an empty one litre or 2 litres bottle along with you who will add up lime and ginger too in your drink for you with your own sugar canes!! (the bottle better be a wide mouthed one :-P for the vendor is gong to loose patience! )LOL .. He would insist that they not be cut into smaller pieces for its tough for him to get them thru that hand operated machine with those wheels crushing the cane no?!



I know this post is awfully late by a few days.. but yeah ! too early for next year 