The farmer in the net
An interview with Chandrasekharan Nair, an ex-serviceman-turned farmer and blogger from Kerala
Tom Thomas
By profession, he is an ex-serviceman-turned farmer, who knows fairly everything related to agriculture like cow farming, co conut tree climbing, rubber tapping and so on. But, to the members of Blogosphere, especially to those who blog in Malayalam, his is a well known name. Kerala Farmer, is the name by which he appears in front of the bloggers. He is S Chandrasekharan Nair, aged 60, a resident of Peyad in Thiruvananthapuram, who now lives looking after his cows and rubber tree plantations after his retirement from the Army in 1985.Now, what makes this person a matter of 
journey of an unskilled towards reaching the mastery over the Internet technology. He has now become a walking encyclopedia to the learners and even to the experts in the w orld of web logs.
His tete-a-tete with Vyga News too was in the form of an online chat.
When asked about his profile, Kerala Farmer gave his primary website link created in the word press platform,www.keralafarmeronline.com saying, whatever one wants to know about me are given in my websites.
An SSLC educated, Chandrasekharan Nair, joined the army during the end of his Pre-Degree days. Studies that too he did, making a lot of hullabaloos in schools and in home.
In college, he was more interested in taking part in strikes and protests. He was born when his mother was 48 years old and his elder siblings were senior to him for a minimum of 13 years.
Now it has become very difficult to make others believe that I am not an IT professional, said Kerala Farmer with a smile. He has been conducting and attending many seminars about many issues including upcoming technologies related to blogging.
His first teacher in internet was his own daughter followed by nephew Padmakumar, the GM of Britek India in Techno park. In Malayalam blogging, those who gave him technical knowledge includes Vishwaprabha, Anil Kumar, Sibu Johny, M.K. Paul, Kalesh Kumar among others.
Kerala Farmer has now become more updated that any other expert in the field, including those who gave him the primary lessons of the web. My main website can be read in the three languages. A language plug in available in the internet helps me to publish the posts at the same time in three different languages, viz, Malayalam, English and Hindi. What I need to do is to just write my posts in three different languages, he explained.
What led him to the world of blogging was actually his stint in rubber farming. When he was the secretary of Quality Rubber Marketing Society, he started a website in Yahoo Geocities for the welfare of farmers in 2000.
When Blogger.com introduced Malayalam blogging, he started a blog 'Karshakante Malayalam' with Malayalam articles in 2005.
In between the talks, he showed the 'farmer side' of himself saying that he would be back within fifteen minutes as it was already late to take the cows for grazing.
When asked about achieving the reputation as an advanced blogger he said, it is the result of my intensive passion to learn things related to blogging.
Now I devote a lion's share of my time in the internet. My service is profitless as I spend six hours every day and nearly Rs. 532 every month apart from the money needed for ADL and Computer.
He finds that there is no better medium than a blog to raise the voice for the well-being of farmers. Through my blogs, I can fight against unjust prizing of rubber, manipulation of the statistics of rubber, researches conducted by concealing the real data of agriculture, etc. Besides, it is a good medium to share my knowledge regarding farming and is a platform to fight against the danger behind using chemical manure and pesticides. Thanal, a trust located at Thiruvananthapuram helps me in this by spreading awareness of organic farming and the harmful impacts of GM crops and yields, explained Chandrasekharan Nair. All the video links related to his activities are given in his main website.
He said that he has become a user of GNU-Linux operating system. I am not able to purchase the costly Windows OS which is being updated periodically. It is a crime to use the pirated proprietary software, and I don't like doing it. The advantage of GNU-Linux is not only that it is free, but also it is less likely to have infected by the virus. Unlike Windows, it can save open office files in any format, explained Kerala Farmer.
What would be the future of the blogs? we asked. He said, With the number of blogs getting higher, the readership will be lessened. But, the readers will find useful blogs through the vast and advanced searching methods. The legislation of Cyber Act will help the coming of quality blogs. He also reminded that anonymity of bloggers can never be assured.
He advised the young bloggers not to misuse the free space provided in the internet by the free blog publishing tools. It is appreciable if someone shares the technical knowledge related with blogging to new bloggers, he added.
Though he was disinterested in reading and writing during his younger days, Chandrasekharan Nair now finds pleasure in both. It might be a punishment for my carelessness in my early years, he said.
Some of the important blogs of Kerala Farmer:
