It’s summer time, and the Indian New Year of Sonvsar Paddvo, Gudi Padwa or Ugadi is nigh.
The summer heat makes one look out for all kinds of cool options.
The traditional option was to sleep on a mat, on the floor, in some well-ventilated place, often the aangan or follem in front of the house. The choice of mat varied depending on where one was located and what plant grew naturally in that area.
Woven bamboo mats are common across the Konkan, where bamboo clumps are common along the hillsides, both wild and cultivated.
The large mat, 3 to 5 m wide, and 5 to 10 m long, is known as the sovyem. It is generally used to sun-dry rice grains, both, before and after parboiling, and also to dry coconut kernel to make copra for oil extraction.
During family and community celebrations like weddings, feasts and zatras, the mat was used as seating for community meals, and also doubled as a mat for sleeping at night.
These mats can be easily wiped with a damp cloth and dried in ambient conditions during summer. They are still in use and are witnessing a revival as more and more people shun plastics, and also due to promotion by the bamboo mission.
Lately, they are also being used to make decorative false ceilings.
During family and community celebrations like weddings, feasts and zatras, the mat was used as seating for community meals, and also doubled as a mat for sleeping at night.
The xendri, or shendri, is essentially a sleeping mat, roughly 1 one and half metre wide, and two metres long (4 x 6 feet).
Now, it generally refers to a korai grass mat that comes from southern Karnataka (old Mysore) and adjoining Tamil Nadu in the Cauvery, or Kaveri, river basin.
In earlier times, date palm leaflets or leaves of the screw pine were also used for making mats. The date palm is still known as xendre madd, and there is a place called Xendrem, in Canacona, where it grows.
The screw pine, or Pandanus species, grows in saline water by the shore and also in brackish or fresh water, along estuaries, and is locally known as kewri or kegdi.
And, the areas where it grows are known as Kerant or Keri giving rise to village names such as Querim and Sinquerim.
The leaves are softened by immersing in boiling water before making the mats.
The mandri of Quepem is a tribal mat, made from reed grass, locally known as lavo or nou. The width of this mat depended on the length of this brackish water reed grass.
The mats were also used on the other bank of the River Kushavati (that was the border between the Portuguese colonial territory of Salcete, ending with Chandor or Chandrapur, the ancient capital of the Kadamba dynasty, and Kepe or Quepem in the kingdom of the Sondekar Raja, a sovereign king till 1764 AD).
The revival of the mandri began with a project by ‘banglanatak.com’ in 2016 and is taken forward by the Adivasi Sangatna Kepem of Quepem, which now organises an annual tribal festival in January.
The mandri is on sale with the Kunbi-Gavddi community of the area as well as at Lok Utsav in Canacona in January-February.
One can also see it on display all year round at the Goa Chitra museum in Benaulim, South Goa. This mat cost roughly Rs 1,500 and is the coolest and softest mat option during a hot, Goan summer.
(The author is the former Chairman of the GCCI Agriculture Committee, CEO of Planter's Choice Pvt Ltd, Additional Director of OFAI and Garden Superintendent of Goa University, and has edited 18 books for Goa & Konkan)
