Insights

Though fate was not kind enough to help him study more, Rauf’s fondness for new techniques has made him a trail blazer.


I had met him five years ago. He was then emerging as a leading horticulturist. This August when I met him, he had not only gained fame, but had also earned an honorary doctorate. Abdul Rauf Abdulkarim Shaikh had always been reaping success. Crowning glory came last April when he was conferred ‘Doctor of Science’ by the University of Agricultural Sciences at Dharwar. This capped all those sobriquets that farmers in Sirsi had heaped on him.


But Dr. Shaikh remains the humble farmer that he has always been. A high-walled, black velvet cap sits inclined over his head and the doctor farmer remains clad in a while lungi and shirt. Armed with a chopper in hand he moves around his banana grove lopping off an extra growth here and adjusting a sprinkler there. In between, he would shave off the head of a tender coconut, spike a straw inside and even chop a spoon off the sides to finally break open the kernels for guest-visitors to his farm.


Skeptics aver that honours and success may have eluded Abdul Rauf if he had those Rs. 35 to pay for his 9th grade fee in 1953 and thereby continued his education. Shaikh discontinued his schooling after he was made to stand on the bench for failing to cough up the annual fee, a princely sum at that time. Disappointed, he had returned to his village home in Banavasi, 25 kms from Sirsi. He began to till his 13-acre land after recovering it in small parcels from adverse possession.


Today Shaikh and his family produce truckloads of pineapple, banana and papaya over nearly 300 acres of land around the picturesque village of Banavasi. He has emerged the uncrowned ‘Pineapple King’ in the area.


Though fate was not kind enough to help him study more, Rauf’s fondness for new techniques has made him a trail blazer. He successfully experimented with cultivation of pepper in plain lands which is otherwise a hill plantation crop. By employing drip irrigation, he has shortened the cropping season for pineapples from 18 to 14 months. He even supplies fertiliser from drip irrigation tubes. His experimentation with pepper also met with success in that he began to get the first crop from pepper creepers within six years against conventional 12 years. Even pineapple yield has gone up. Earlier, an acre of land yielded 20 metric tons of pineapple in two years. Now it yields 40 metric tons in 14 months. Abdul Rauf is now 63 and lives in his quiet village and enjoys a wide reputation as a benefactor of farm labourers. All the 250 farm hands who work under him trust him for his honesty and kindness. When not needed, they leave their money with him and remain assured that it could go nowhere.


After pineapple, Rauf has set his sight upon banana which grows on 500 acres. Rauf’s forte is G-9 variety of bananas wherein he grows 2,640 plants in an acre. Rauf says: ‘All that a banana plant requires is a space of 7 ft. by 4 ft. by 3 ft and yield is 30kgs per plant.


Abdul Rauf is in the process of setting up a pineapple canning unit in Banavasi. The unit would crush 10 tons or 6000 fruits in eight hours with a recovery of around 50 per cent. He says pineapple is grown on nearly 3000 acres in Shimoga and UK districts, but there are only two units, of which one is defunct.


A friend of former Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, Abdul Rauf says he does not hesitate for a moment in passing on useful farming tips to others. “Knowledge is a common heritage of humanity”, says Abdul Rauf with all the humility at his disposal.


(He can be contacted on 94800-19065 or 08384-264242, 264268)

We are a credulous lot. Shy of accepting that we miserably lack creativity, scientific inquiry and adventure, we try to manufacture myths about our religion, all with the pious intention of Islam gaining some supremacy. We fill this void in the collective life of the community with falsehood and fantasy that only gullible guys like us can believe.


A little before dawn of Ramadan, I and countless others like me, received an sms. It said: Astronaut Sunita Williams and other members of her crew have embraced Islam. Why? Because, when they looked at earth from the space, they saw two bright spots. They could later confirm through telescope that they were mosques at Makkah and Madinah. Rest of the earth was enveloped in darkness. The sms ‘informed’ us that the US government is keeping them from making an announcement to this effect. Soon after, there were some pictures purportedly issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that showed the two mosques awash in brightness. While Muslims chaikhanas were agog with such flippant news items, a few Urdu newspapers splashed those photographs, lending a ring of credibility to those lies.


The ease with which such lies travel amidst us and are lapped up by even the educated class, speaks of our high gullibility.


I knew for sure, that we as a people are most vulnerable to glib talk and even forgery if it goes, to reinforce some of our religious beliefs. And we feel no qualms in involving religion too in our pursuit of credulity. I browsed the NASA’s official website for such pictures. It did not have mention of any such incident. Nor such images were available in its gallery. I am also sure that the US Government does not bother about an individual’s belief, be he/she an astronaut or scientist.


Almost two decades ago there were similar rumours about the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong converting to Islam. A leading activist of a religious group claimed that he met the astronaut during his missionary trip to South Africa. I challenged that rumour monger and shot off a letter to the astronaut then residing in Lebanon, a village in Ohio, US. In his reply Armstrong not only denied that he had embraced Islam but also repudiated the claim that he heard Azan over the moon. The letter is still with me.


But the latest episode insults even those who are not endowed with high degree of intelligence. Any attempting at capturing the image of two Harems at Makkah and Madinah from a flying aircraft at night are bound to produce the picture these spreaders of falsehoods attribute to space satellite. Dressed in white marbles and amply illuminated, the two mosques stand out in contrast to the surrounding buildings that are neither marble clad, nor so well lighted nor are even prominent landmarks. But I am skeptical if the two Harems could be spotted at all from outer space by naked eyes, unless amplified by a telescope. And switch off the illumination, the Harems would also drown in darkness. All those who have been witness to the terrorists occupation of the Harem at Makkah in 1979, would endorse that in those 14 days, the Harems were enveloped in not only darkness, but gloom.


It is time we exorcised ourselves of those rumour mongers. It does not help us nor does it help promote the cause of Islam which desires it followers to be rational beings. Flight of fancy can delude its credulous promoters, not the residents of this larger world who insist on reason. Magic and fantasy are fun. They do not win adherents to a cause.


Umpteen numbers among us complain that we do not have media. I am firm that we are less likely to develop one. Media requires some apprenticeship in credibility. We sorely lack that quality.