Kallen pokkudan autobiography of a facebook

Born in 1937 to the Pulayar caste in the district of Kannur in Kerala, Kallen Pokkudan spent his childhood experiencing the omnipresence of caste and feudal subjection before joining the Communist Party of India at the age of eighteen. He spent many decades of his life engaging in protests and other activities as a member of the CPI (M) before being disillusioned with the Party’s attitude towards the issue of caste. It was in the late 1980s that Pokkudan first became involved in the collection and planting of Mangrove seeds. When he passed away in 2015, mainstream media mourned the ‘Mangrove Man’ and the ‘Mangrove crusader’, words which demonstrate the centrality of the plant to the environmental activism he was most renowned for.

There is a variety of forms of life-writing surrounding Pokkudan. Besides the endless reserve of newspaper articles, features, interviews, texts of delivered speeches, documentaries and at least one biographical film, Pokkudan has authored two autobiograp

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The life of Kallen Pokkudan, a mangrove conservation from the Indian state of Kerala, was so incredible, that our little bio barely scratches the surface. The impact he’s had on the region is difficult to quantify, but this stat does a pretty good job:

Around 90% of mangrove forests in Kerala have been lost in the gods 4 decades. Half of what remains is in Kallen Pokkudan’s district.

The experts I spoke to all attributed Kannur’s mangrove conservation success to Pokkudan. His family has been working tirelessly to continue his extraordinary conservation legacy since his passing.

When you have to watch your own bio every single day, as you come towards the end of post production, it can get pretty bloody tedious. A month has now passed since inom last watched it, and inom can able to appreciate what we’ve created. A nice feeling indeed.

A big shout out to @miss._menon @rum_dmc @edcooksound @harvey.wilson.reulo for bringing this film to life. And most importantly, to the @kallenp

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Meet Kallen Pokkudan - The Man who built a forest !!

At the time of his birth, Pokkan’s umbilical chord looked like the bloated, elongated seed of the mangrove tree, and people affectionately tweaked his name to ‘Pokkudan’, a play on his physical condition. It was this kid with the bloated umbilical chord, born to untouchable pulaya parents in a Kerala village in the early 1930s, who went on to become the legendary Kallen Pokkudan, a name now synonymous with mangrove conservation not only in the state, but all over India.

Throughout his life, Pokkudan has lived in close contact with the nearby wetlands and, for over a decade, been collecting, preserving and planting the seeds of the “mad mangrove” tree (the long-fruited, stilted mangrove known as rhizophora mucronata). Some 22 species of mangrove trees welcome you to Pokkudan’s village nestled in the rich wetlands of north Kerala’s Kannur district. Over the years, this humble farm worker has planted over 1,00,000 mangrove sap