Tamil Nadu is the 11th largest state of India in terms of area. The capital of Tamil Nadu is Chennai. The southernmost point of India, Kanyakumari is a small town located at the confluence of Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. For a long time it has been a significant site in India both spiritually and more recently as a day tripping excursion from Kerala. Famous Indian and Philosopher, through possibly unknown to most foreigners, Swami Vivekananda spent long period of time meditating here and resultantly has a large monument created to him just of the shoreline. Mahatma Gandhi also visited Kanyakumari and another prominent attraction is a mausoleum dedicated to him in the form of an Orissan Sun Temple.
The oldest and the most ancient landmark in this town is the temple of Goddess Kumari who prayed to Lord Shiva to be accepted as wife by him. During the British Raj, it was also known cape Comorian probably a British corrupted version of ‘Kumari’, meaning virgin.
Banana plant not only gives the charming fruit but it also provides the banana fibre. It grows easily as it sets out young shoots and is most commonly found in hot tropical climates. All varieties of banana plants have fibre in abundance. These fibres are obtained after the fruit is harvested and fall in the group of bast fibre. Appearance of banana fibre is similar to that of bamboo fibre and ramie fibre, but banana fibre fineness and spin ability is better than two. The chemical composition of banana fibre is cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Banana fibre is highly strong fibre. Banana fibre has smaller elongation. It has somewhat shiny appearance depending upon the extraction and spinning process. It is bio- degradable and has no negative effect on environment and thus can be considered as eco-friendly fibre.
Apart from the uses, Banana offers a food source of the fibre with excellent commercial value. Fibre is extracted from the pseudo stems of the Banana after the harvest. Banana fibre is a major alternative to pulp industry. Raw material is freely available.
Global warming is a major risk to mankind. To stop and to reverse the effect of global warming, there is a need to replace non-reverse the effect of global warming, there is a need to replace non-renewable, non- degradable, and synthetic materials with renewable, bio-degradable and natural material. The best to bring about the change is to make use of or find innovative which can be used is banana trunk.
Banana fibre is a natural bast fibre which has wide range of uses in handicraft product developments such as mat, rope and twines, but only 10% of its pseudo stem is being used for making products and remaining is waste or used a fertilizer. As it has property like weatherproof, UV protection because of lignin content, moisture absorption, anti-oxidant and bio-degradable etc... It can be used to make variety of products that help farmers economically and have wide scope to create market. Recent studies have indicated banana fibre processes a lot advantageous physical and chemical properties.
Artisan Thangajothi living in Kanyakumari. She trained 500 students till now but presently work for craft maximum 20 members with her. She started working with on this craft during her school days.
