If you Google search for coconut climbers your monitor will be flooded with hundreds of YouTube videos, of men and women. Kerala women are famous for climbing coconut trees with the help of climbing machines. But hold your breath. In our own backyard there is girl coconut plucker who doesn’t use any machines. To climb and descend even the tallest of the coconut trees is just like a walk in the park for her.
Meet Miss Devita Bhisso Velip, age 20, coming from a hamlet called Ponsulemoll in Cotigao, a remote village of Canacona. She started climbing coconut trees without any machinery or aid since the age of 10. It was her brother who challenged her to climb a coconut tree. Her brother’s challenge might have been one of the simple games she picked up as a small girl. However, Devita has mastered the art of coconut climbing since then and can easily climb jackfruit, mango or any other tree.
Apart from this, she can plough a field with ease and can handle the farm equipments like a mini-tiller or a ox mounted manual plough.
She even showed a memento presented to her by a NGO way back in 2013 for being the only woman in Goa who can pluck coconuts in the male dominated world of coconut climbers.
She said, she is even ready to train other women if someone approaches her. With her skills, she expects the govt to provide her a job in which she can train other women the art of climbing.
