Banana, the highly nutritious fruit

Are bananas an essential item in South Indian pujas (prayers) and celebrations? Yes, people decorate

Are bananas an essential item in South Indian pujas (prayers) and celebrations? Yes, people decorate temple entrances, weddings, and festivals with banana trees at the entrance, offer banana fruits to the deity, and during meals use banana leaves as plates (no spoons or small bowls for liquids).

It is an art to eat rasam saadam on a banana leaf. Although these days one can buy ‘modern’ banana plates in restaurants, where dry banana leaves are ‘stitched’ together for convenience.

J. Meenakshi, a science writer, writes in BBC that the banana tree is equated to Lord Brihaspati (Jupiter) for fertility and bounty. Thus, bananas are considered sacred.

Dr. K.T. Achaya, in his book, Indian Food: a Historical Companion (Oxford Univ. Press, 1994) mentions banana in Buddhist literature in around 400 BC. He mentions that bananas came to South India from New Guinea island through the sea route. Some have claimed that it was in New Guinea that bananas have been first domesticated.

Ms. Meenakshi found during her travel from Hyderabad to Nagercoil that there are some 12-15 varieties of bananas. These plants grow in regions that are warm and humid, abutting the Western Ghats.

Given this, where all in India is banana grown? Largely in the peninsular southern coastal region, namely in parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Bengal, and in the Northeastern areas such as Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

However, the central and northern regions (Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab) also grow the plant but neither in such variety nor in numbers.