The Hindu Business Line : Pakistanis to chew <I>Bambaiyya paan</I>?

WHEN Laloo Prasad Yadav went to Pakistan last year, the bucolic Bihari leader presented President Musharraf a bagful of paan or betel leaves. It would perhaps take a social scientist to explain the importance of the unusual gift, but it demonstrates the place the heart-shaped leaves have in the every day culture of a tradition-bound sub-continent.

That is why when it seemed that trade between the two wary nations may resume, one of the first places a Pakistani trade team visited was Kelva, a coastal village about 120 km from Mumbai, one of the only two villages (the other is neighbour Mahim) that cultivate the unique "Bambaiyya" variety of the chewing leaf popular in Pakistan.

If all goes well paan exports — stopped more than 20 years ago when relations between the two nations soured - to Pakistan will resume within a month.

According to Mr Sanjay Kotecha, a second-generation paan commission agent in Kelva, the Pakistani delegation visited farms and took home samples. "Currently, we send the leaves to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and some Gulf countries. We hope to begin exporting paan to Pakistan, which is a huge market, within a month. It would also help improve depressed prices," Mr Kotecha said.

Currently, Bambaiyya paan prices range between Rs 350 and Rs 450 per thousand leaves for large ones.

The price is around Rs 50-60 per thousand for small ones, which are more popular for daily consumption.

"Pakistanis like the strong, spicy taste of the variety unique to the two Konkan villages," said Mr Kotecha.

A trader said it is so popular in the Islamic country, where sometimes people consume up to 100 beedas (a mix of betel nuts, lime and catetchu wrapped in betel leaves) a day, that people pay thrice the usual price at places like Lahore's `Paan Galli', a street famous for Indian-made stuff.

There are about 500 small and big paan farmers in Kelva and Mahim.

The predominant cash crop of the two villages is betel, which is collected by agents like Mr Kotecha and distributed further by about a dozen traders.

The traders buy leaves worth about Rs 2.5 lakh per day from the villages.

Mr Kotecha says the popularity of gutkha (betel mix with tobacco), conveniently packed in plastic sachets, and pollution from nearby industrial units have severely affected prices and production. He estimates that production has fallen 60 per cent over the past 10 years.

Says paan farmer Mr Balkrishna Raut: "We have been cultivating the leaves for generations. We will get better prices if exports improve."

Farmers like Mr Raut make about Rs 1,000 per day depending upon the number of leaves picked each day. Some earn even Rs 4,000-5,000 per day.

"I employ two women to sort the leaves. I pay them Rs 40 per six thousand leaves," Mr Raut said.

Mr Kotecha, whose father started the paan collection business in Kelva 50 years ago, says the leaves get their unique taste from the soil of the region.

He said the farmers tried to introduce other varieties but their taste changed after a couple of years.

Paan leaves from Kelva may not add to the country's foreign exchange reserves. But they could certainly help the two mistrustful neighbours, who always see red, ruminate about improving goodwill reserves. Laloo Prasad perhaps knew that.

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