A tribal farmer from Wayanad died this week at 74. In his old mud house, he kept more than 60 traditional rice varieties alive.
His name was Cheruvayal Raman. People called him Ramettan.
He belonged to the Kurichya tribe in Wayanad, Kerala. When he was 17, his uncle died, and the family's traditional rice seeds came to him.
Wayanad once had around 160 native rice varieties. Most of them have disappeared.
He grew each old variety in its own small plot. Every year he harvested it, dried the seeds, and stored them in his mud house for the next season.
He stopped using chemical fertiliser in 1978. He said the earthworms came back after that.
It cost him around Rs 70,000 a year. Some years, his family lived on ration rice.
When other farmers came asking, mostly tribal families, he gave them seeds without taking money.
In 2023, he got the Padma Shri. Kerala Agricultural University made him a professor of practice.
He once said, "Don't call me a hero. Make sure the seeds survive. That is enough."
The “Kambli was more talented than Tendulkar” debate is nothing new.
From Bradman to Kambli, Lara to Vaibhav, Ponting to Kallis, Tendulkar has been compared with almost everyone.
Sachin Tendulkar was being compared even before he became a household name - that’s how extraordinary his rise was.
• At 15, likened to Sunil Gavaskar by the Mumbai circuit
• In 1992, Imran Khan compared him with Inzamam-ul-Haq (by this time Tendulkar scored test hundreds in England and Australia).
• At 88, Don Bradman saw his own reflection in Tendulkar (by this time Tendulkar had 10 Test Hundreds).
• Strokeplay drew parallels with Viv Richards (by this time Tendulkar started opening for India in ODIs).
• ODI batting comparisons with Saeed Anwar and Mark Waugh, in the race to surpass Desmond Haynes’ ODI hundreds record.
• Then came comparisons with Brian Lara
• Followed by Ricky Ponting
• And alongside Jacques Kallis
After retirement, the benchmark shifted to Virat Kohli, Alastair Cook, Steve Smith & Joe Root
And now, even teenagers like Vaibhav Suryavanshi are being measured against him.
That’s the thing - Tendulkar wasn’t just compared across generations. He became the standard every generation gets compared to.
Great video edit!
Made to look funny, but the fact is after we will be fully enslaved and sedated by the digital, tech or AI universe, physical or labour skills will be the most sought after.. at premium price..
Everyone remembers the attack on the Mumbai railway station on 26/11, the gunmen walking the platforms, more than fifty people killed. Almost nobody remembers the announcer whose voice sent hundreds of strangers running the other way while the bullets were still flying.
His name is Vishnu Dattaram Zende.
On the night of 26 November 2008, he was on duty in the announcer's cabin at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a raised glass room looking out over the platforms. It was near the end of his shift when he heard a loud blast and gunfire, and saw people running.
Two terrorists had walked into the busiest station in the country and begun shooting everyone in sight. At that station alone, they would kill more than fifty people.
From his cabin he could see the whole layout, and he understood something fast. Local trains were still pulling in, each one about to pour hundreds of passengers straight onto the platforms where the gunmen were standing.
He had a microphone that reached every platform. He decided to use it, even though it meant staying exactly where he was, in full view, instead of hiding.
He began making announcements, over and over, in Hindi and Marathi, telling people not to come to the main concourse, telling them to leave by the rear exits, warning them away from the guns.
Hundreds of people changed direction because of that voice and walked out of the station instead of into the bullets.
The terrorists worked out where the announcements were coming from. They came and stood almost directly below his cabin. One of them fired up toward him. He kept low, waited, and when he could, went back to the microphone.
He was an ordinary railway announcer on an ordinary shift. He had no weapon and no protection, just a mic and a clear view of what was coming. He stayed at his post and used the one tool he had to push strangers out of the path of the killers.
The men with the rifles are the names everyone remembers from that station. The voice that quietly saved hundreds of the people they came to kill belonged to Vishnu Zende.