KOZHIKODE: He grew up seeing his father tilling paddy fields and husking coconuts to pay his college fee. For N.K. Ramesh, who was born into poverty, it has been a long journey, ploughing on with a passion for the pre-historic past. Today, the 32-year-old from Vadakara has been credited with numerous archaeological discoveries, including the unearthing of Palaeolithic tools from north Malabar.
“I had an obsession for stamps and coins, shells, and feathers. The fascination later shifted to history and prehistory. My collections enabled the history department of the government college at Mokeri to set up a folk museum to exhibit the objects,” he says.
Mr. Ramesh, while doing his postgraduate degree, was instrumental in setting up an archaeology gallery at the Department of Anthropology of Kannur University during 2007-09. The exhibits included his discoveries of pointed hand-axe of the Palaeolithic period from the Vanimel river basin in Kozhikode and pointed choppers and boner-cum-scrapper from Cheerkkayam and Anekkayam in Kasaragod district.
His interactions with P. Rajendran, geoarchaeologist and former scientist of the University Grants Commission, famous for his discovery of a fossilised human skull dating back to 1.66 lakh years from a site near Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu, led him to focus on prehistoric subjects. “That took me to Aligarh Muslim University to do a postgraduate diploma in museology,” Mr. Ramesh says.
“I could not seek any help from my elderly parents since they had to take care of my two physically and mentally challenged brothers,” he says.
Vacancy of sweeper
At Aligarh, the vacancy of a sweeper at the university gave a glimmer of hope. “But this was shortlived. I had to fall into the university diktat: either continue studies or take up the job. It was then that the Malayali association came forward to bail me out with financial assistance. I topped the course to receive the gold medal,” he said.
In the meantime, Mr. Ramesh continued with his amazing discoveries, including those of the Mesolithic era at Panom forest, Kadanthara river basin, and Chevayur in Kozhikode district, apart from Megalithic urn burial sites, and cist burial monument in rural belts.
North Kerala is emerging as a centre of new discoveries, thus challenging 19th century British geoarchaeologist Robert Bruce Foote’s version that the region was unsuitable for prehistoric habitation, Dr. Rajendran said.
However, a permanent employment still eludes Mr. Ramesh, though he had been a project fellow at the Indian Council for Social Science Research, research assistant at KIRTADS, and doing jobs as curator at the Ethnological Museum at KIRTADS, senior assistant at the Heritage Museum of Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University, and museum guide at Kunhali Marakkar Memorial Museum at Vadakara.