Harikumar Madhavan Nair is probably best known for the national awards that he won for the sound design of the famed films, A Pestering Journey and A Memory of the Sea. What most people don’t know about this sound engineer is that he is also a passionate farmer.
Harikumar’s love for farming made him buy paddy fields at Mangilikkari at Vellayani near here extending over an acre. ‘’This is my way of protesting against the large-scale filling of the paddy fields and the general perception that paddy cultivation is impossible in Kerala,’’ said Harikumar, who has been recording sound for many German, French and Canadian films.
This monsoon, he was probably one of the very few farmers at Mangilikkari who dared to go in for cultivation, despite the scanty rain. ‘’The plants didn’t get enough rain at a crucial stage and I know the yield will be affected. But at least I will get safe pesticide-free rice to eat,’’ said Harikumar, who generally gifts bags of rice to his friends after the harvest.
The sharing of the grain also happens with the birds and animals too, in a system of farming which Harikumar describes more as ‘natural’ rather than ‘organic’. So be it the birds of the sky or pests in the soil, all get a share of what Harikumar cultivates. He uses no chemicals, and instead of pesticides, he uses stinking fish-waste to keep away the pests.
It was documentaries on environment that sparked Harikumar’s interest in agriculture. He believes that the current chemical farming may give immediate results, but in the long run, it is going to destroy the environment.
Right now, his paddy field is a gold-tipped green, the paddy all ready for harvest. ‘’Labour is still a problem, so I have started harvesting it on my own. I thrash out the grain on that stone there and leave the straw back in the field,’’ he explained.
The straw left in the field becomes the manure for his next crop. Between crops, Harikumar grows ‘cheera’, cucumber, groundnuts and gourds in his field. Sans any chemicals, either as fertilisers or as pesticides, the banks of the fields also have a lush growth of the forgotten flower ‘thumba’, the medicinal centella plants and ‘thazhuthama’.
Despite his busy schedule, Harikumar is at his farm on the dot of six every morning tending to the plants. Harikumar fervently wish like-minded people would take to farming so that this ‘oldest culture’ is not lost to Malayalis. ‘’We cannot afford to depend on others for food,’’ is his mantra.
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