This is life!

At a time when we are looking at minimizing any direct contact with any outsider, groceries and vegetables are one big black hole – we all are extra cautious ensuring the corona does not enter our homes through these essentials. And it is during this time that many of us have indulged in a thought process – what if we were living at a farm and cultivating our own produce?

While it will be next to impossible for most of us, this family in Kerala has been doing just that for the past 12 years. Uma Maheshwaran and his wife, Rajasree, have been cultivating their land with the entire family in tow.  We only talk tall and read about self-sustenance but this family actually practices it.

They grow everything they eat — rice or vegetables in their 20-cent plot in Vilavoorkkal, Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala. Sometimes, they need help beyond family and they get the help from Krishi Bhavan nearby for levelling and ploughing the land. Last year they cultivated 400 kg of rice and post paddy season, they got a 10kg on pulses.  They also grow other things like ginger, turmeric, pepper and vegetables like tomatoes, ladies finger, green chillies, cauliflower, along with bananas.

They are professionals as well as farmers – the husband, Uma, 60, is a professor at the Vellayani College of Agriculture in the Department of Plant Pathology. The wife, Rajasree, works as the Joint Director of Plant Protection at the Directorate of Agriculture. Their son is a banker and they all agree that coming back home and sitting looking at your farm beats every view on this earth.

Sounds like paradise for us as we stare out from the small windows, thinking that piece of sky is what life is.