Passed Down
Through Generations
This didn't start as a business. It all began with my grandmother.
Back in the 1940s, my grandmother, Keerthi Veettil Janaki Amma, was married at just 13. She moved from Lakkidi to Vadakkanthara, but her heart and mind always remained with the rural paddy fields back home. Sitting idle just wasn't in her nature. For decades, she routinely traveled between Vadakkanthara and Lakkidi, walking the narrow field bunds under the hot sun to oversee the farming herself.
Those were simple days. No tractors, no chemical bags, no shortcuts. Just bullock carts, good monsoon rains, organic manure, and endless physical labour. The rice from those fields fed our joint family for generations. By the late 1990s, when other farmers started switching to chemical fertilizers for quick yields, my grandmother flatly refused.
"No artificial fertilizers; to give life, Nila's clear water, the soil's strength, and a drop of sweat are enough." That was her way.
As a kid, I used to watch my grandmother sit by the water channels, picking up the wet mud to check its feel and texture. The food served by those hands had an honest, rich taste you simply couldn't find in store-bought grain. That memory stuck with me.
After 20 years of service in the Indian Air Force, I retired from official duty and came back to Ottapalam. Taking over my grandmother's land and buying out the remaining shares from my relatives felt like the only right thing to do.
But the reality on the ground was brutal. Years of synthetic fertilizers under tenant farming had completely choked the soil. It was hard, grey, and dead. My first five crop seasons were absolute disasters. Crops withered, grain count dropped, and every single harvest ended in heavy financial loss. By conventional agricultural logic, leasing the land out was the practical choice. But when you've spent two decades in the military, you don't pack up and run just because the terrain gets rough.
"Good rice takes time. You cannot rush healthy soil."
I went straight back to what my grandmother used to do. I set up large barrels under the trees and began brewing Jeevamritham and Panchagavyam, mixing local cow dung, urine, jaggery, and pulse flour by hand, twice a day. It took time, but the land slowly woke up. Earthworms came back. The hard dirt softened into rich, dark mud. Frogs and dragonflies returned to the water channels, and the bright, natural green returned to the crop.
Today, walking the fields at dawn and smelling clean, living earth is how I honour my grandmother's memory. Keerthi Organics isn't about massive commercial output. It's simply our humble effort to keep those fields alive, and to bring the same pure, chemical-free rice my grandmother fed us to your family's dining table.