Vazha Chettan, aka, Vinod Sahadevan Nair, is an angry man. As he tramps through slushy fields lush with different kinds of plantain, the names of bananas he cultivates roll off his tongue — Matti, Pisang Jaribuyam, Ayiramka Poovan, Pidimonthan, Gothiya, Jahanji, Ney vazha, Lambi, Lady finger, Beeji kela, Blue Java… Vinod’s farm in rural Parassala, nearly 35 km from Thiruvananthapuram, is a star among banana farmers in India for having 400-plus kinds of banana, which Vinod has painstakingly collected from all over India and abroad.
The Cavendish, currently the world’s most popular banana, however, does not have priority in his list. Even while agri-scientists worry if the Cavendish will go the way of the Michel Gros, which fell out of favour when large tracts of Miche Gros banana fields died due to a fungal attack in the fifties, Vinod is more concerned about the diminishing diversity of native varieties in India, especially in Kerala.
