Many roles to make a living

KOCHI: Baiju K C, who hails from Mananthavady in Wayanad, owns an unwavering resolve in life that keeps him going despite all odds. “It is all about willpower. It helps me manage any task on hand. I have a family to look after and a home to build,” he says. The professional coconut plucker from the pristine Vellamunda village has been working hard on Kochi’s streets for the past five years to realise his dream of owning a home. The 41-year-old Gulf returnee also dons the role of a lumberjack, who single-handedly cuts down huge trees in the city limits.

“I’m ready to take up any job. I learnt coconut plucking at a very young age, and I get more enquiries for that. I often work as a lumberjack too, if I come across scuch jobs. If I get more money from cutting trees than plucking a few coconuts, I will do it without any hesitation,” quips a hardworking Baiju. He was employed as a chef in Dubai for six years and returned to Kerala in 2014. However, his year-long tryst with agriculture landed him in a huge loss and forced him to move to Kochi.

“Though I returned with a lot of expectations, things didn’t go as planned. I started with three quintals of ginger, 500 banana trees and 300 tapiocas, but everything perished. Lack of support from government officers forced me to move away from agriculture,” he says.  He regularly travels back home to visit his family on a motor bike every 15 days. “It takes half a day to reach there. I stay back for a week, managing groceries and stocking vegetables,” says Baiju. The family currently lives in a shack made from asbestos sheets. It was heavily damaged during flood. “I cannot afford to repair it now, as it would cost over a lakh rupees,” he says.

Baiju shifted to Kaduthuruthy in Kottayam in 2019 after his wife got a temporary teaching job there. But his family returned to Wayanad before the lockdown. “I come to the city on my bike around 5.30am daily. I work till 6.30pm and return. At times, I work late into the night because returning to the same spot would mean additional cost and effort,” he says. Though rates are different in every part of the city, he charges based only on the task. “Even with a good pay, some trees can be hard to climb. I rarely fix the rate. I make do with what the owners pay me,” says Baiju.