my award will prompt many to help maintain our tradition of herbal medicine which can be the best remedy for any rare diseases so i have not kept a door to the house is a mudhouse roofed with bamboo leaves which she calls her vaidhyashala being born inside the forests how could we destroy our own mother i wish to publish all my poems she says i took her home gave her ramayana to read the first thing i would ask the authorities is to provide a good road inside our settlement as many of my patients especially pregnant women find it difficult to reach here in case of emergencyclose she seems to be a believer of carrying forward traditions as she says i wish my next generation also takes up indigenous medicine and explores the diversity of sacred medicinal practices like my previous generation and i have done through this i can understand more about the scruples marked by famous scholars including buddhashe recollects how there was a middleaged woman in her family was disowned citing mental illness i am the daughter of the forest and i very well know its pulse she did it for 30 days and came out a smart woman who later had a good family life standing in front of her incomplete singlestoreyed house the 74yearold padmashri awardee who is fondly called vanamuthashi welcomes us with a smile and says sorry for the unfriendly roads in 1948 i learnt alphabets from a basic learning school at kallar but the forest officials have tagged us by saying that we are trying to invade the place and disrupt it however she also says that man should not disrupt natures balance mechanism lekshmikutty credits her husband for boosting my confidence in finding medicines and travelling to places that said vanamuthasshis mind is plagued by the problems of climate change and its subsequent impact on forests my dream is to find calmness from these busy days and get time to write more away from the hustle and bustle of the city in a dense forest in kallar is where k lekshmikutty amma lives later i married mathan who became the moopan of our kani tribe here i informed about this to dr s rajasekharan of jawaharlal nehru tropical botanic garden and research institute palode and he helped me explore the umpteen benefits of the plant belonging to the kani community we follow the indigenous remedies which were passed on from our forefathers the naturality of these must be conserved says the recipient of naattu vaidya rathna award award for naturopathy from the kerala government in 1995before attending the phone call of a patient from abroad to give consultation she says nevertheless i am alone here and i wish to adopt two dogs as they are the best companions of a human and are quite truthful to us though i give prescriptions based on my findings only if one has the practical knowledge of the herbs can they carry