'She is a nice girl, simple, patient and affectionate. Because she is so empathetic, because she has the ability to feel for people, I am sure she will be able to solve the problems ordinary citizens face in this country.'
Cheruvayal Raman, a farmer in Wayanad, was not shocked or surprised when Priyanka Gandhi's representatives contacted him to tell him that the Wayanad MP wanted to visit his home.
He was also not overly elated when he was told he had been awarded the Padma Shri in 2023 for preserving the seeds of 60 varieties of rice. He did so not expecting any accolade; he did so as he thought it was his duty to preserve traditional rice varieties for future generations.
"She is the granddaughter of Indira Gandhi. She is the daughter of Rajiv Gandhi. And she is the Wayanad MP, but she was so down to earth and simple. She did not act like a high and mighty person," Cheruvayal Raman -- Ramettan to young and old alike in his area -- tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier.
Priyanka Gandhi wanted to visit his home.
I got a call from Priyanka Gandhi's private secretary 5-6 days before her visit. He said, 'Rametta, Priyanka Gandhi wants to visit you at your home. I replied, 'Of course, she can come to my house anytime'.
I didn't ask him why she wanted to visit me. You don't ask when somebody says, I want to come to your place. I knew she wanted to meet me because I had been awarded a Padma Shri.
I was told to keep the news private as they did not want many people crowding the place. She had instructed Congress members not to accompany her.
I asked her private secretary whether we should prepare anything special for her, but we were told she would not have a meal and that we needed to make something very light.
We are aware she may not like the kind of food we have which is so different from what she generally has.
So, we decided to make uniyappam and ila ada (both sweet dishes).
When she got out of the car, my family and I garlanded her and gave her a bouquet and welcomed her to our home.
In the traditional way, we spread a mat on the verandah for her to sit. Like us, she removed her shoes and sat on it very comfortably.
She is the granddaughter of Indira Gandhi. She is the daughter of Rajiv Gandhi. And she is the Wayanad MP, but she was so down to earth and simple. She did not act like a high and mighty person.
That's what I liked about her, her simplicity.
She listened patiently to what he had to say.
Now that the Wayanad MP was in front of me, I didn't want to waste any time. I told her the struggles of the Adivasi community of Wayanad today.
I told her, 'We, the Adivasis of Wayanad are facing extinction. If you count only education as development, we are getting it today. Other than that, our lives have not improved. Our community is slowly diminishing.'
I also told her that the question that is being raised everywhere is whether we are Hindus and whether Hindu laws are applicable to us when we are included in the scheduled tribe category as Hindus.
I wanted to know what kind of protection the government authorities are offering us.
There was a translator who told her in English everything I said. Priyanka was taking notes. She didn't tell me I will do this, I will do that. Since she was taking notes, I knew she wanted to study whatever I said before taking any action. That's why I saw sincerity in her actions.
I also told her it was during the Emergency that her grandmother Indira Gandhi came out with the law that said nobody should grab the land of Adivasis and sell it.
The law also said that if anyone had our land with them, they were bound to give it back to us.
Today, if we have our land in our hands, it was only because of the Act Indira Gandhi came out in 1976.
I told her, in 1957 when the EMS (Namboodiripad) government implemented the Land Acquisition Act, Adivasis lost all their land.
If the EMS government had exempted Adivasi land from being taken away, our situation would have been different today. EMS (the world's first democratically elected Communist head of government) should have thought about our plight in 1957, but he didn't.
This is the reason I like Indira Gandhi who later protected our land.
Priyanka is like his daughter.
After I poured my heart on the problems we Adivasis face, we started talking about ourselves.
I asked her how old she was, and when she said she was 52, I said I was going to call her moley (daughter in Malayalam) as she was only as old as my daughter.
Then she said, she would call me Achan (father in Malayalam). After that, she addressed me only as Ramachan.
We were really like a father and daughter afterwards.
Growing up in the paddy field from childhood
I belong to the Kurichiya Adivasi community of Wayanad. My family has been traditional farmers for several generations.
I grew up in a family that had 60-70 members. Those were the days of the joint family system.
But we lived in abject poverty. I had a childhood without proper clothes, without proper meals and without proper education. It was a luxury to have one proper meal a day in those days. I grew up eating mainly wild fruits and roots of vegetables.
Going to school was a dream and I could go to school only till the 5th standard.
From the age of 10, I started helping the elders in the field.
You can say I grew up in the paddy field which gave me a lot of knowledge about different varieties of rice.
It was in the late 1990s that I realised why we are losing everything that was traditional. One of the ill-effects of the Green Revolution was that farmers started using a lot of chemical fertilisers and that was destroying the soil and also people's health.
That was when I felt it was my duty to preserve what has been passed on by my ancestors. If I didn't preserve them, we would lose them forever. That was how I became what they call the 'guardian of rice seeds'.
I was given the Padma Shri in 2023 for my efforts.
I am against using any form of chemical fertilisers. I grow all the 60 varieties of rice in a small piece of land and then preserve the seeds for the next crop. I am doing this for future generations. I don't use any chemical fertilisers in my land.
A walk in the paddy field with Priyanka
After she had coffee and a bit of unniyappam, she expressed her desire to see the paddy field.
She came out wearing her shoes but removed them when she noticed I was walking barefoot. Although she was not used to walking barefoot in a paddy field which can be slippery, she did so like all of us, without any difficulty.
That's why I like her, she is a very genuine girl.
A look at Ramachan's house
After we came back from the paddy field, she wanted to see our house.
My mud house with a thatched roof is more than 150 years old, and quite big as it housed a huge joint family once upon a time.
I took her inside the house and she was happy to see the several awards given to me including the Padma Shri.
When she saw the bow and arrow that was displayed inside, she wanted to know the history behind it. She also wanted to try it. So, I taught her how to use it and to everybody's surprise, she was on target!
Sitting at my place itself, she wrote a note to me with 10 points and said, she would try her best to do all the 10 things she had promised. I also told her that whenever we in Wayanad faced problems, I would write to her, and I plan to write regularly.
Now I read in the newspaper that Priyanka has written a letter to the tribal welfare ministry after meeting me, asking the ministry to include traditional tribal knowledge in the curriculum of the Ekalavya model residential schools as students were not taught their own traditional knowledge systems. I am happy that she did write the letter.
Saying bye to Priyanka Gandhi
Before getting into the car, she told me that she loved our house, the surroundings and also the bond we had developed as a father and daughter after spending close to three hours with me.
I also told her that I liked her very much. She behaved like a very ordinary person, without any airs.
She is a nice girl, simple, patient and affectionate. Because she is so empathetic, because she has the ability to feel for people, I am sure she will be able to solve the problems ordinary citizens face in this country.
I was with her till she got into the car. Then, she caught hold of my hand and said something in Hindi which I didn't understand. I told her, thank you for visiting us.
Just before she left, she said, "Next time when I come to visit Ramachan, I will bring my mother, brother and my two children!"
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff