THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is a girlish spright in her steps as she sashays into the thick, verdant spread surrounding her mud house, the insides of which reflect a deeply earthy aesthetic — smoking stoves, dim interiors, and a clustered room brimming with mementoes and accolades she has earned over the years.
At 81, Lakshmikutty Amma takes pride in all that she has achieved, especially the Padma Shri, which reached her from Delhi to the remote, reclusive stretch of land nestled in Ponmudi’s Kallar forest range.
She remains passionately engaged in her vocation, one handed down through generations of her tribe, the Kani, known for their intrinsic knowledge of the Western Ghats.
“I have two people coming tomorrow for treatment,” Lakshmi exclaims, adding that people seek her help for relief from migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, and lifestyle ailments related to diabetes or blood pressure. “But my forte is vishavaidyam, that is treating poisoning from bites of snakes or other reptiles.”
Both Ayurvedic and allopathic practitioners come to learn from her — a Class 8 dropout. “But remember, Class 8 in my youth was a hefty education for tribespeople,” she smiles.
Though Lakshmi is the most well-known, the stretch of forest is home to several such traditional physicians from the Kani clan who continue to practise tribal medicine. Mallan Kani and his son Ashok are one such duo, running a clinic near the main road leading to Ponmudi.
While their clinic is open year-round, it is during the Malayalam month of Karkkidakam that they receive most patients. “In tribal medicine, the concept of Karkkidakam doesn’t exist much. For us, every day of life must be spent in harmony with nature, which has immense power to heal you inside and out,” says Mallan, while pestling together an assortment of leaves.
“We treat people to four days of ‘marma’ massages using oils brewed from forest herbs. We also prepare ‘Karkkida kanji’ made with forest herbs and organic varieties of rice.”
There is a dip in demand now, Mallan notes.“The medicinal leaves have also become scarce. There is a lot of change in nature around now. Still, we treat people three days a week at our clinic. I make the medicines here myself,” he adds.
Mallikarjun Kani, who was one of the top physicians of the tribe until a stroke and heart attack slowed him down a few months ago, seems upset with how things are now. “There were vast stretches of meadows here. That was the ecosystem. Now look around — there are just trees, most of them planted under forestry initiatives from various departmental projects,” he says. “Does it suit the natural ecosystem? This question is hardly asked.”
Mallikarjun’s clinic still functions, though it is a tad less crowded than before, when even ministers queued up for his treatments. “The stroke I had is something rare among us tribespeople, and it shows how the changes in the ecosystem have started to affect us,” he says.
“Now we have to buy everything. Earlier, except for salt, we grew and gathered all that we needed,” he says, gesturing to the sparse samples of native vegetation he has planted around his home, tucked away deep within the forest stretch leading up to the Kallar eco station.
The Kanis are also disgruntled about the new system where they have to show ID cards to re-enter their own settlements after venturing out. “Moreover, we are heckled if we take what we need to live from the forests. This has been our way of life,” says Mallikarjun.
Another issue, he adds, is that workers under MNREGA are engaged in various projects here, and they clear wild growth, mistaking them for weeds. “They often are not aware that many of these plants are storehouses of medicinal properties,” says Mallikarjun. “There is an urgent need to reverse the disenchantment towards indigenous knowledge. There should be more studies on the medicinal reservoir that our Western Ghats is.”