A TRIBUTE TO LALIT KUMAR PRADHAN
by KC Pradhan
Kalimpong, and for that matter, the country as a whole, lost another great plants-cum-nurseryman in Lalit Kumar Pradhan, known in the plants world for his nursery- “LK Pradhan & Sons”. He was born and brought up in Dikling, Pakyong, before moving to Kalimpong in the 1950s. He was the grandson of Dr. Bhuwani Prasad Pradhan, one of the first medical doctors of Sikkim who passed out from the Temple Medical College, Patna, way back in 1913.
Though I knew him since childhood, our association matured into a keen bondship, far beyond a mere family relationship, in 1976 when he volunteered to assist our gifted landscape architect, the late Naren Rai, to prepare the Sikkim Pavilion at Pragati Maidan for the International Agri Show in New Delhi; in which Sikkim bagged the Gold Medal as the First Prize.
It was for the first time in the country that plants were exhibited in a well landscaped garden and plants laid out duly depicting their habitats whether it was a mountain, a river valley or a village landscape. Three truck loads of village stuff and a score of gardeners were carted to the exhibition site to recreate a typical Sikkimese village semblance that dazzled the Delhi crowd and Sikkim instantly became a buzz-word. He was a workaholic with great commonsense of nursery trade and yet with a large heart always keen to share his knowledge that led to plants nursery business proliferate beyond a confined domain.
Like any nurserymen he traded in all bulbous plants and seeds but his real achievements for which many in the country will remember him fondly is introduction of Cacti of commercial interest, mastering the technique of growing and ultimately blaze the trail in international trading on a scale unheard of in a small family nursery business. People around the world get amazed to know Cacti from hot arid deserts of Mexico and Central America also grow this high up in the Himalayas. During his lifetime, he, along with others, introduced some 1,100 species. Besides a ‘Cacti-man’, I nicknamed him ‘plant gambler’. He traded in style and in the bargain used to lose and gain, but on the whole, he was better off.
Once the international trading of Cacti was banned due to CITES (Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species), and the Cacti business was on downward spiral, except one Pine View Nursery of Mohan Pradhan who converted his Cacti collection into an eco-tourism product, Lalit Kumar steadfastly continued to nurture his array of mother plants. It took him good twenty years. Once they started flowering and producing seeds, he had an upper hand and was well set for mass scale growing and trading with covenants of the Convention well fulfilled. This earned him wide respect as he was trading following the rules of the game and gave him immense satisfaction.
He was a very social and jovial personality who endeared all, whether his numerous friends at Gangtok and Kalimpong, the plant collectors, the humble growers or retinue of workers that worked in his garden at Chuba Busty on the outskirts of Kalimpong.
We miss him dearly and pray his soul rests in peace…
by KC Pradhan
Kalimpong, and for that matter, the country as a whole, lost another great plants-cum-nurseryman in Lalit Kumar Pradhan, known in the plants world for his nursery- “LK Pradhan & Sons”. He was born and brought up in Dikling, Pakyong, before moving to Kalimpong in the 1950s. He was the grandson of Dr. Bhuwani Prasad Pradhan, one of the first medical doctors of Sikkim who passed out from the Temple Medical College, Patna, way back in 1913.
Though I knew him since childhood, our association matured into a keen bondship, far beyond a mere family relationship, in 1976 when he volunteered to assist our gifted landscape architect, the late Naren Rai, to prepare the Sikkim Pavilion at Pragati Maidan for the International Agri Show in New Delhi; in which Sikkim bagged the Gold Medal as the First Prize.
It was for the first time in the country that plants were exhibited in a well landscaped garden and plants laid out duly depicting their habitats whether it was a mountain, a river valley or a village landscape. Three truck loads of village stuff and a score of gardeners were carted to the exhibition site to recreate a typical Sikkimese village semblance that dazzled the Delhi crowd and Sikkim instantly became a buzz-word. He was a workaholic with great commonsense of nursery trade and yet with a large heart always keen to share his knowledge that led to plants nursery business proliferate beyond a confined domain.
Like any nurserymen he traded in all bulbous plants and seeds but his real achievements for which many in the country will remember him fondly is introduction of Cacti of commercial interest, mastering the technique of growing and ultimately blaze the trail in international trading on a scale unheard of in a small family nursery business. People around the world get amazed to know Cacti from hot arid deserts of Mexico and Central America also grow this high up in the Himalayas. During his lifetime, he, along with others, introduced some 1,100 species. Besides a ‘Cacti-man’, I nicknamed him ‘plant gambler’. He traded in style and in the bargain used to lose and gain, but on the whole, he was better off.
Once the international trading of Cacti was banned due to CITES (Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species), and the Cacti business was on downward spiral, except one Pine View Nursery of Mohan Pradhan who converted his Cacti collection into an eco-tourism product, Lalit Kumar steadfastly continued to nurture his array of mother plants. It took him good twenty years. Once they started flowering and producing seeds, he had an upper hand and was well set for mass scale growing and trading with covenants of the Convention well fulfilled. This earned him wide respect as he was trading following the rules of the game and gave him immense satisfaction.
He was a very social and jovial personality who endeared all, whether his numerous friends at Gangtok and Kalimpong, the plant collectors, the humble growers or retinue of workers that worked in his garden at Chuba Busty on the outskirts of Kalimpong.
We miss him dearly and pray his soul rests in peace…
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