THE CHRONICLER OF PALM HISTORY

YEARS ago, on a hot summer day in a tiny village in Kanniyakumari, a 14-year-old boy stood before a towering palmyra as sweat rolled down his chin.

- M ABDUL RABI

With a thick belt encircling his hip, the boy climbed up the palm tree in minutes. The boy was being trained by his father to become a palm climber, a job that had sustained their family for decades.

S Anbaian of Pottavilai village, Nediyancode near Swamiyarmadam was the young kid who effortlessly climbed the tree under the guidance of his father. Cut to 2024, the dwindling number of palmyra, Tamil Nadu's state tree, has affected the prospects of many such palm climbers in Kanniyakumari. But when his age caught up with him, Anbaian, now 67, replaced his climbing tools with a pen to narrate the stories of climbers like him and preserve the knowledge of palm products for future generations.

Looking back at his journey, Anbaian told TNIE that he had to drop out of school after Class 7 due to financial troubles. His father, A Sangili Nadar, was also a palm climber, and the family depended on the income from palm products to survive.