Who else knows the joy of planting bean seeds and watching them sprout and grow in just a few weeks? The storyteller chose such an appropriate seed when he lets Jack exchange his cows for magic beans. The next morning when Jack and his mother look out the window, the beans have grown unbelievably until they are touching the sky above, and leading to the enchanted sphere where the rich and wicked giant lives with his uncharacteristically kind wife.
I have had the joy of planting a row of beans and have experienced something close to the wondrous joy Jack must have felt on seeing the rapid growth of his seeds.
A week after they were sown, my bean seeds sprouted happy heads and began to grow. The rains came just in time, even though a tad erratic. My beans have grown and grown until some of them are taller than their bamboo supports. Their tendrils still continue to thrust skyward. They have blossomed in the sun and rain. They have survived the wind in April that bent them every which way. And now we are waiting for bean pods to appear and be certified as food.
A backward journey takes me back to the day I bought them from a woman of Dihoma selling bananas and bean-seeds by the wayside. It was morning and school children were scurrying off to school. But the bean-seed seller and I were in no hurry. A short exchange turned into a longish conversation and she disclosed that she was worried about her son who was not doing too well. Jobless and drifting, he had befriended the bottle once too many. There on that busy street, we bowed our heads and joined our prayer thoughts together for the bean plant in her household gone awry.
Her wares were meager: country ginger, papaya and cucumber seeds in addition. How could she possibly feed a family from the sales of such? A few days later I looked for her in the same spot where she claimed that she always plied her business, but the spot was vacant. She was not there the next day either nor the next. I have sometimes wondered how she is, and how the errant son is. Why did she no longer come to town? Had she run out of bean seeds? Little questions like these niggle my mind. Did they have enough to eat? Did they have a row of beans like mine or had she sold all her bean seeds and left none for herself?
The unfairness of it strikes me that our local traders have nowhere to sit and sell their vegetables. The pavements are their sales counters. They sit from morning till evening trying to sell a bunch of bananas or some home grown vegetables. Yet even as they sit there beside their vegetables, the men from the Municipality would appear like the big, bad giant from Jack’s story and chase them off. It’s a modern fairytale with a bad ending.
Is it going to be so hard to provide them their own space where they can sit without being accosted by the long arm of the law every now and then? How is it that the non-local traders sit in the best places in the vegetable markets while there is no place for our local women? Doesn’t that ever strike the authorities as not right at all?
We could think of a Naga Ima market for our local women traders where they can earn for their families without fear of the law chasing them out. They deserve all the support we can give. Our economy can improve as we improve the lot of the local women traders.
The examples of communities like Longleng and Tuensang are beautiful. In the last twenty years, these communities concentrated on empowering their women by setting up self-help groups for them. The Longleng women received loans to buy piglets. They also worked together to open their own granary which sold grain at cheap rates to villagers during the lean months. Consequently the changes in their communities became very visible as a result of the empowerment the women had received. In Longleng they started a little candle making factory. Their home-made candles had a much longer life than the store bought candles. The common granary they started has served them well as villagers do not have to go broke buying hoarded grain at high rates from unscrupulous sellers. They received maximum support from the church. Kohima women traders badly need this kind of support from us. If we put our heads together, a Naga Ima market can be begun and it can thrive. It would be the best way to wish them a truly meaningful Mothers’ Day. Come over and let’s talk.
