On February 22, 2020, I visited Dr Chiranjit Parmar. An acquaintance at IIT Mandi - Dr Nilamber Chhetri had told me about Dr Parmar as among eminent fruit scientists in the country who shared an enthusiasm for Himalayan history. That evening I called Dr Parmar and asked if I could meet him for a conversation on the intertwined history of apples and life in the Himalayas. I was curious - how did a fruit scientist look at this world?
What greeted me on that call was a voice of ageing yet youthful enthusiasm, carrying in it a subtle yet buoyant excitement that surfaced itself eloquently befitting his age. He sounded like a man of experience, and a keen storyteller, I would be listening eagerly to. And it came with a clear mark of humility, I was not expecting from a man of his stature.
I had my fair share of difficulty in understanding the directions to his house, which turned out to be one of the easiest locations in Mandi - a few steps from the Kusum theatre on the main road. The house is right in the centre of the city. Later Dr Parmar shared that he had built this house in the open outskirts of Mandi that were no more, but a bustling city centre.
Dr Parmar’s daughter invited me in. She pointed me upstairs and then to the right. I was surprised that he preferred to be upstairs at his age. When I pushed open the door to his room, I understood why. An air conditioner hung opposite the door beneath the small window. On its frame stood six seedlings in disposable plastic cups, suspended in water. One of these, avocado. The two other walls to this small room were cupboards stacked with books. In the centre, an L-shaped wooden desk. A desktop monitor stood on the smaller vortex of that L. And at what appeared to be a geometrically precise centre of the desk opposite him, a timepiece. This had been his office for years and age hasn’t done enough to deter that. This is why he is here on the first floor. This small room was a home for his work, steeped in books, CDs, with his desk as the centre stage of it all. He enjoyed his work outdoors. He worked in multiple countries apart from his field sites here in Himalayas - Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Japan, to name a few but of late he has developed vertigo and prefers not to move around much. He has also published a travelogue in Hindi, titled “दुनिया जैसे मैंने देखी”. Dr Parmar also developed the botanical garden at IIT Mandi and was often invited to share with students history of Mandi and Western Himalayas.
I pushed the door in. Dr Parmar welcomed me in through that door, with what felt like a shared enthusiasm. I took a chair opposite him, took out my iPad with the long list of questions I had prepared for him. As the conversation unfolded, I realised that my list did not matter anymore. The story he had to tell, was far more potent and meaningful than the one I had come investigating.
““We had installed the equipment of the time - thermographs etc and wanted to test, find, and breed low-chilling varieties of apple that would cohabit these lower tracts of Himalayas.” ”
It turns out that Dr Parmar started his career with the agriculture department at Dhaulakuan in district Sirmaur. Sirmaur is also my home district among the Shivalik foothills of Himalayas. In Dhaulakuan he was breeding and testing varieties of citrus fruits. The sixties had witnessed several research stations across the state, including pear, pomegranate, olives, nuts and raisins. “The director of agriculture - L S Negi was a great visionary, and created these small research stations across the state”. But five years later in 1967, Dr Parmar moved to Bagthan, another village in Sirmaur where he made a research station to test 105 varieties of apple. A series of research stations were developed to that end within Sirmaur itself. The then chief minister, oft known as the founder of the state of Himachal Pradesh, Yashwant Singh Parmar also lived in Bagthan especially on days he took rest from his office. Bagthan was his home. YS Parmar took an immense interest is fruit trees and their potential for these montane worlds. YS Parmar himself was always trying something new, and when we’d point him that ‘this a tropical fruit and wouldn’t grow up here’, he’d retort, “तुम साययंटिस्ट ना बड़े थीअरेटिकल होते हो” (you scientists are too theoretical people). He recollects this as a particular conversation when YS Parmar had tried growing avocado trees at his home. “Those trees grew, and we had to accept he was right”, laughs Dr Parmar. For a moment I thought that the avocado seedling in that disposable cup on the air conditioner, basking in the fragment of sunlight that peeped in through that small window was Dr Parmar’s attempt to repeat history. “We had a good time, good conversations.”
‘We had installed the equipment of the time - thermographs etc and wanted to test, find, and breed low-chilling varieties of apple that would cohabit these lower tracts of Himalayas. The bureaucracy was very inapt, and there were no procedures in place to keep records after people were transferred. Fruit trees require maintenance of years worth of records. “When I was transferred here to Bagthan, the newer officers in Dhaulakuan did not maintain records of those citrus trees. Even if they did, no one knows where they went”. “Transfers happened all the time”. In the end, Dr Parmar complains, regional politics unfolded and further compounded this prospect. The powerful farmers in higher reaches of Himachal did not want the extension of apple trees into lower altitudes. The station was closed and I went on to do my PhD in 1972.
““Scientists of your generation Shoaib, want quick results.””
Dr Parmar brought out three strands of his own experience that distinctly struck me. One, he said, “scientists of your generation Shoaib, want quick results. After their PhD, they want a quick series of papers that will get them a prestigious fellowship within 3 - 4 years. So no one wants to do the breeding. Breeding takes years.” On the contrary, someone who’s interested in this area would be looked down upon as slow and lazy. “इसने तो इतने साल क्या ही काम किया है”.
Second, as a result, people want to pursue research avenues that do yield quick results. That has further strengthened the agrochemical industry and produced this unwelcoming nexus. He seemed to suggest that agriculture sciences are in a strange paradox. On one hand, extensive soil and entomological research towards pesticides, insecticides, fertilisers etc draw on the scientists’ ability to quickly test and publish such research; and on the other increasing concerns of their overuse have made agroecology or organic models as a singular panacea. This does not pay attention to what Dr Parmar views as the single most important avenue - nature’s way of growing up - breeding; the sexual orgy that lets trees evolve in face of stresses of pests, climate, etc.
Third Dr Parmar suggested, that scientists do not engage in popular writing, and thus they echo in a world of their own that becomes largely inattentive to engaging with the needs of farmers. On the contrary, he lamented, popular writing often leads to professional rivalries. ‘It was one of the reasons that culminated into my leaving the Nauni University of Horticulture and Forestry in 1992’. Dr Parmar runs his website - www.fruitipedia.com. He also keeps a more personal blog, together with a travelogue that he has recently self-published. “I used to write in popular media, and not everyone liked that”. "My website has had more than 4,500,000 visits in its eleven years. The blog has had about 150,000 visits. It is incredibly satisfying."
Dr Parmar recollects his time in the US around a conversation between the president of American Horticultural Society and then editor of the weekly magazine Horticulture. The society had a readership of 40,000 and the magazine, of 400,000. The editor appealed to the society’s members to contribute in popular writing. "Even when at Nauni, I used to write in popular media and my colleagues used to criticise my habit". As Dr Parmar turns 81 and suffers from Vertigo, he finds it a time to return what he prizes the most - writing.
In the part - II of this story, I will bring to further focus Dr Parmar’s account on breeding and testing of apple cultivars as a blindspot in the history of fruit science and its extension in Western Himalayas.