Recently, I chanced upon a photo of a young boy carrying a gun made of bamboo in one of the dailies. Second-guessing what prompted him to craft the deadly weapon, and not the musical flute, was duck soup. The decade-long conflict, of course. In pre-conflict Nepal, if any bambino made a “dangerous” object of bamboo, it might have been a catapult.

Scores of handy objects can be made from bamboo. Anyone can reel off the names: flutes, walking sticks, barriers, baskets, brooms, ladders, furniture, among other things. So much so that I have even spotted people using bamboo combs. Come Dashain and Tihar, the linge pings will prop us at various places. Matchsticks and toothpicks, the former to make fire to cook food and the latter to remove it from teeth, should not be forgotten as well! As it is hollow, bamboo is indispensable for canalisation of rural Nepal. A huge chunk of cultivable land in Nepal is tilled, thanks to water brought through bamboo canals. Taps too are sometimes made from bamboo. As government-sponsored taps have become a pipedream, bamboos serve as pipes to fetch drinking water to many a village.

Traditional Nepali houses have bamboo pillars that support the roof. Moreover, are not the bamboo huts, like bamboo forests, a marvel to behold? Bamboo can also serve as ‘firewood’. Likewise, some people as well as bears and pandas relish bamboo shoots as a delicacy. Few years ago, I had a chance to visit Ardeche in southern France, which is home to a bamboo forest called la Bambouseraie. The local guide proudly claimed that the jungle was the only bamboo forest in Europe, adding that the place attracted people in large numbers, not only from various parts of France but also from neighbouring countries. While the veracity of the guide’s claim was dubious, I was a tad surprised to see so many people keen on visiting a bamboo forest.

Back home, bamboos grow everywhere. Visiting such forests here will be considered one of the most absurd activities.

However, our kids seem to have taken a giant leap by learning to make use of the giant woody grass in a rather unconventional fashion. Wish they resorted to the traditional products.