BAMBOO - The Wonder Grass of Nature

It is said that the divine melody, from the flute of Lord Krishna, enchanted the people of Brindavan. Ever since, the enthralling and captivating sound of flute has been resounding in the hearts of admirers and artists alike late Pandit Pannalal Ghosh, Pandit Devendra Murdeshwar, Pandit Raghunath Seth, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Vijay Raghav Rao, G. S. Sachdev, Ronu Majumdar, Nityanand Haldipur, and, Shashank Subramananyam, and many more.

The name Bansuri has its roots in the word “Banse” means bamboo. Originally used as a folk instrument and to accompany dance, the Bansuri has only recently in this century been used in classical Indian music.

Flute is one among the myriad outcome of bamboo, the wonder grass of nature. The incredible bamboo is food, folder and primary construction material and is a rich array of aesthetic objects.

Bamboo is one of the most beautiful and useful plants on mother earth. Grown in abundance in the tropics, is widely utilized by the rural communities from the cradle to the coffin.

As presumed, bamboo is no longer the “poor man’s timber.” It is steadfastly growing in popularity and reaching the homes of the elites. Artistic decoration, aesthetic master pieces, items of utility, you name it, and the bamboo artisan has it.

The strength, straightness, lightness combined with extraordinary hardness, range in size, abundance, easy propagation, and the short period in which they attain maturity make them suitable for variety of purposes and hundreds of different uses.

The growth of bamboo is slow in the first year, as the plant is putting most of the energy into its root system, and then in one brief season explodes with growth. There are two main types of bamboo, the Clumping bamboo and the Running bamboo. The Clumping Bamboos have a very short root structure, are genetically incapable of expanding more than a few inches a year and will generally form discrete clumps. The Running bamboos spread variously, sending out underground runners or rhizomes, which sometimes emerge far from the parent plant.

The bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Some varieties grow at an implausible rate of 5 cm to 2 inches per hour and the bamboo can reach a towering height of several meters; the tallest reaching an astounding 20 meters or over 6 feet.

Over 75 general and 1250 species of bamboos are reported to occur in the world. Unlike timber which requires a growing period of 20 years or more, bamboos can be harvested for use at the age of just three years.

Botanically, bamboo is classified as:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum (Division): Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Subclass: Commelinidae
Order: Cyperales
Family: Gramineae (Poaceae)
Subfamily: Bambusoideae
Tribe: Bambuseae
Subtribe: Bambusinae

Bamboo is a very important forest produce. It plays a vital role in the socio-economics of the rural population. In India, bamboos have a wide range of distribution forming an under storey in several forest types. The tropical moist deciduous forests of northern and southern India and the deciduous and semi-evergreen forests of northeastern India are the natural habitats of bamboo.

India is the second richest country in bamboo genetic resources after China. These countries together hold more than half the total bamboo wealth distributed all over the world. Over 58 species of bamboo belonging to 10 genera are distributed in the Northeastern states alone.

The bamboos are distributed in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Hills of Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. These also occur in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Orissa, and the Western and Eastern Ghats. Very few species occur in the Northwestern Himalayas.

All the bamboo material has a mild sweet taste and all parts but the leaves are used to resolve phlegm. While the phlegm disorder to be addressed may be related to lung head causing coughing and sticky phlegm, bamboos is especially used for the disorder of hot phlegm that coats or obstructs the “orifices of the heart,” affecting the brain functions. Thus, it is used for epilepsy, fainting, loss of consciousness in feverish diseases, and a variety of mental disorder that develop with aging.

In the Andaman Islands, people believe that humanity emerged from the bamboo stem. A number of other countries too, have such legends, depicting the bamboo as noble, sacred and good luck charm.

Thus, the woody perennial evergreen plant in the true grass family has spread rapidly around the world and is here to stay; the bamboo will perish or flourish with the humans as their destiny is interlaced with the human race.