Villagers chop jak trees while Colombo Sevens save them

by Reggie Fernando

The finest bit of news I read for many a month apart from the great victories we won in defeating the country's deadly enemy in the north and east, is the announcement made by the Gampaha District Department of Agrarian Services of its launch of a campaign to plant a hundred thousand jak trees.

Obviously I raise my pen to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his 'Apiwawamu Ratanagamu' domestic food production program and of course to also those in the Gampaha District Agrarian Services for having initiated this campaign.

Jak or Kos as we call it has been one of my favourite dishes even during the four odd decades I was living in the West. In London jak was freely available at East End's Brick Lane market dominated by Bangladesh traders and I hardly missed a meal of boiled kos (thambapu kos), polos curry, kos mallum, kiri kos, vankos, not to forget atu kos or for that matter waraka or wela.

Of course, I have noticed on many an occasion certain types frown and many even laugh at me when I say kos is one dish I really relish. I am not surprised as these are people who think that by pretending not to have eaten kos, they can pass off as 'posh' and gain superiority over others.

This brings me to a very close friend of mine, a modest man living at a palatial house in Barnes Place, in Colombo 7, who loved everything in the jak tree - the trunk, leaves, flowers and the fruits in all its cooked forms that he went on to save a jak tree that was about to be cut down by his builders.

The land, a part of the main house was gifted to him by his father, a millionaire business heavyweight. His part of the property had many trees including a jak tree which he was determined to save. As our picture shows he built his home around the jak tree and during the season, laden with green and yellowish fruits, it looks absolutely gorgeous in the midst of all the other flowers.

These trees which are commercially important are undergoing a rapid disappearance due to illegal felling and smuggling in many parts of the country. It will be recalled in those great old days 1940s and 50s, villagers planted jak trees around their homesteads and on the boundaries of their lands.

Today, I am told their lack of interest is due to economic reasons as jak doesn't fetch a good price at the market place.

Jak has a number of remarkable properties and the medicinal value of jak has been known to the hoi polloi for centuries. Even the jak leaves are used for various cures. In parts of Asia the leaf dried and powdered is used to remove the pits formed on the skin as a result of small pox. And our women will be interested to know that eating jak enhances the attractiveness of skin colour and also increases ones life span.

The most frightening words came from a man in Gampaha itself who said; "Although we are blessed with a vast number of jak trees they will soon totally vanish from our country unless some stringent laws are put in place to halt their destruction and encourage their grown as done by the Gampaha District Department of Agrarian Services recently."

If all other districts follow the Gampaha initiative and with the war brought to a finish in a few years time, our country will once again, like the days of the Sinhala kings be a land of milk and honey, and glory as well.

Ministers - let's kick off right now.