"Child's cradle to the dead man's bier".

About

Bamboo is woody grass belonging to the sub-family Bambusoideae of the family Poacae. Worldwide there are more than 1,250 species under 75 genera of bamboo, which are unevenly distributed in the various parts of the humid tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions of the earth .

This natural resource plays a major role in the livelihood of rural people and in rural industry. This green gold is sufficiently cheap and plentiful to meet the vast needs of human populace from the "child's cradle to the dead man's bier". That is why sometimes it is known as "poor man's timber".

Bamboos has versatile uses as building material, paper pulp resource, scaffolding, food, agriculture implements, fishing rods, weaving material, substitute for rattan, plywood and particle board manufacture. Pickled or stewed bamboo shoots are regarded as delicacies in many parts of the country. The major user of bamboo in India is paper industry, which consumes sizeable proportion of the total annual bamboo production. Bamboos are good soil binders owing to their peculiar clump formation and fibrous root system and hence also play an important role in soil and water conservation.

Food

Bamboo shoots are used in cooking in many parts of India. North east India, Kadagu district of Karnataka and west coast are some regions where bamboo shoots are popular. While rest of India was exposed to this delicacy through Chinese restaurants, the awareness about its usage in Indian cooking is very low. Vegetables like Zucchini, broccoli, celery and herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano and lemon grass, which were unknown to Indians until recent times have arrived in Indian markets, fresh bamboo shoots are hard to find except in the regions mentioned above and in some cities where they are mainly sold for use in Chinese restaurants. If enough exposure and information is offered to consumers, this versatile ingredient can find many applications in Indian cooking.

Bamboo Flowering in North east

Flowering in every 48 years is supposed to bring calamities in North east. Hold it as a superstition or a co-incidence, it happens!-

-In 1991-12, many people moved away from their native village to settle as far as Tripura, Manipur and Western Burma. A man of Lalhrima’s village fetched rice from 35 kms away and a night before he reached home, he developed a cholera symptoms. The poor man was dragged out of the village before he was dead and buried there by his family. The family even did not return to the village and stayed in a thlam. That night, all people from his veng ran away of the village in all directions to the jungle and to make thing worse a dangerous thunderstorm assaulted them.
- In 1959-60, a sever famine followed bamboo flowering. There was severe starvation and the common mass had general feeling of neglect by the Indian Government. This led to rebellion and MNF gone underground which lasted for 20 years costing numerous dear lives and heavy casualties.
-seeds falling on the ground in the forest, juice and seed part in the interior of the seed are eaten away by rats. In the earlier flowering of bamboo in Mizoram, it is said that rodent population on these bamboo seeds and multiple themselves in terms of ten thousands in a year and once, the bamboo seeds are no longer available to them, they finish away all agriculture products in a day migrating from place to place in thousands and thousands numbers. Henceforth, severe famine is the unavoidable circumstances.

Bamboo houses

The construction materials for building a bamboo house is readily available and accessible. The bamboo based house has a very low weight therefore foundations can be minimised. For wall construction are used wall panels, assembled from split bamboo grids and chicken steel mesh and plastered with cement mortar. Basic materials for house components (bamboo, wire, bolts, chicken mesh, and cement) are inexpensive. Bamboo can tolerate high values of deformations in the elastic range i.e. possesses high elasticity. Therefore bamboo houses when properly constructed are ductile i.e. being able to sway back and forth during an earthquake, without any damage to the bamboo poles.
Bamboo is available in commercial quantities using the established supply system. It is a renewable plant with a short rotation period. Bamboo grows to its full size for about a year. Another two or three years are required for the plant to gain its high strength. Bamboo can be grown even on degraded land. Construction materials from bamboo should be treated in order to achieve longevity. The use of high energy materials, like cement or steel, is minimised. Therefore the adoption of bamboo for house construction helps preserve the environment