The 1930s-40s: The Indian National Congress (inc) calls upon Keralites to abstain from drinking toddy. The argument is two pronged: social and economic. Toddy tapping is projected as a debased profession that wastes the resources of the coconut tree.

Year 2001: Coconut prices drop drastically. Coconut growers, wearing garlands of coconuts, jump into the Arabian Sea as a mark of their anguish.

Year 2002: Priests, intellectuals, farmers, women and children in Kerala are all engaged in a defiant exhibition of toddy drinking on television screens: an attempt to reposition toddy as a