വിദ്യാർത്ഥികളുടെ കൊയ്ത്തു മഹോത്സവം
STUDENT'S KOITHU
MAHOTSAVAM
The
staff and students of Government High School Pappanamcode had a field day at
the ‘Koithu Mahotsavam’, where they (literally) got down and dirty harvesting
paddy on the school campus! This was the second year in a row that they were
harvesting paddy on the school campus, which has three khandams(paddy fields) and an extensive vegetable
garden too.The second edition of ‘Koithu Mahotsavam’ began with celebratory
cries ofaarppuvili, followed by a folk song rendered by a bunch of
students, the boys dressed in traditional farmers’ attire of checked dhotis and
baniyans complete with Palmyra caps, and the girls attired in colourful ‘mundu
and thorthu’. The staff members and the rest of the students lined up on the
sides of the khandam. Then,
it was time for the actual koithu (harvest). Amid exuberant cheers, the chief guest, up-and-coming
actor Mahalakshmi, did the honours, sickle in hand, followed by invited guests,
the staff and the students.
Looking
on with pride was M. Ajayadev, former Malayalam teacher of the school, who
spearheaded the idea of cultivating paddy on campus. “In school textbooks
[SSLC] we now have a few chapters on agriculture. I’m a keen agriculturalist,
hailing from rural Erumeli, and I thought it would be prudent to teach the kids
a few practical aspects of agriculture too. The headmistress P.V. Padmaja
wholeheartedly agreed to it and set the idea rolling, often dipping into her
own pocket to fund the activities. And that’s how we sowed the seeds for a
paddy field,” says Ajayadev, who now teaches at Government Girls Higher
Secondary School, Manacaud.
But
before they could plant paddy they had to clear the entire back lot of the
campus that was covered in dense foliage. “The back lot was a huge mound.
Working before school and after class, a group of senior students hacked
through the mound with pick-axes and levelled the area. We demarcated the area
for a paddy field, and made it ready for cultivation using a crude version of a
furrow to till the field by hand,” says Ajayadev. They got some 50 kg of rice
during the first harvest, which was used to make payasam for the 152 students
of the school and a dozen members of staff. “We’ve now got to thresh the paddy
and, with the adding of two more paddy fields this academic year, we hope the
harvest will be even more,” says Ashalata K.R., teacher and convener of the
agricultural activities of the school.
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