Winter is still some way off, but preparations to collect date palm sap have begun. At Tarash in Puthia upazila of Rajshahi, Jamshed Ali owns about 50 date palms, and he and the tappers, known as gachhis, are busy getting them ready to yield sap.
Prothom Alo photographer Shahidul Islam's pictures follow the stages of the work: getting ready to climb, cutting away the fronds, trimming the branches, sharpening the hansua blade used for the job, then shaving the bark to open a channel for the sap. In one picture, a bird sips sap that is already dripping from a tree.
The tappers say that, if all goes well, sap collection should begin within a week of the shaving.
Photo: Md Sakibul Hasan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0); a representative picture of date palms shaved for sap
Source: Prothom Alo
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