Prutha Goa

The ongoing controversy about the coconut tree not being a tree but a palm brings to mind Damodar Mauzo’s short story These are My Children , where the main protagonist Rosalina names her coconut trees after her three children who have left home to start a life of their own. The trees are surrogates for her children and she treasures them to the point of crossing swords with the authorities. Her last words in the short story are, ‘No! I won’t let you cut my trees. Cut me first, then cut my children!’ The underlying theme is the importance of the coconut tree is equivalent to that of one’s own children. The scientific fraternity has categorised the palm ( Arecaceae family) in terms of trees, shrubs, and woody vines. Palm trees, in fact, are noted in the regions where they thrive for their productive role in human life. The coconut palm has been labelled as a tree because of its growth habitat. The United States Department of Agriculture definition of a tree says: ‘Perennial, woody pl

Damodar Mauzo is a name well known to connoisseurs of good literature. A Konkani novelist and short story writer, he has won fame in the world of English literature too; having had his short stories and novels translated into English and his short stories  Teresa’s Man and These are my Children  included in Goa University’s syllabus for the BA course in English Literature. He has earned countless awards for his work, which include the Sahitya Akademi Award (1983) for his novel Karmelin and the Vimla V Pai Vishwa Konkani Puraskar (2011) for Tsunami Simon . A childhood attachment to books that grew from the age of ten, serves as the foundation of Mr Damodar Mauzo’s skilled authorship. He confesses his earliest choices, for lack of guidance, were not desirable in the sense of literary value. As time passed, however, he came upon writers who would shape his intellect and understanding, and enhance his skill as a litterateur. Sane Guruji, Sharadchandra Chatterjee, Premchand and others of