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| Dr.P.Chandrasekharan, Palakkad |
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Perhaps
in his entire career as an agricultural scientist he wouldn’t have felt
the satisfaction he got 18 years after retirement.
Dr.P.Chandrasekharan, who retired as Dean of Agriculture
University, Tamil Nadu and settled down in his native land of Palakkad was
successful in bringing from the slumber of disuse, 2 native varieties of
paddy and making them high yielding ones.
Thavalakkannan
and Chenkazhama were native varieties, which Dr.Chandrasekhar used to
taste even as a boy. Though
they were replaced as favourites for cultivation by high yielding
varieties, their taste lingered in his memory.
It
was with this background that he went after polishing the breed into a
modern one. The confidence of
2 farmers, K.C.Rajakrishnan and K.Venugopal, who gave him their farm and
all cooperation, and his own research experience, resulted in 2 breeds
that retain the taste and the distinctive deep violet colour on the husk.
For
Dr. Chandrasekharan it was a sort of paying the debt to his mentor.
He had gone to England for doctoral work at the Welsh Plant
Breeding Station. His guide at the Station was the renowned agriculture
scientist Prof. P.T.Thomas, whom the British had honoured with the title
‘Commander of British Empire’. On
completion of the work, Prof.Thomas advised him: the duty of an
agricultural scientist is not academic.
It is to do something to benefit the farmers.
He
has the satisfaction of carrying out the advise of his guru.
Perhaps that is why Dr.Chandrasekhar is indifferent to the
commercial possibilities of his 4 years of labour.
Courtesy: Karshakasree, February 2003
Contributed by: Administrator
