The Doctor of Plants

Einstein of the world of plants, Dr Prana Krushna Parija achieved for botany what nobody else could. He was a green thumb with scientific insight.

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What is history? A long drawn story of great people and their great deeds. While some of these men are born great, others acquire greatness through the work they do. Nobody talks of that farmer who spent his life toiling his fields and feeding his family or that labourer who carried large bricks so that the Red Fort could become what it is. While the masses have a significant role to play, history remembers them as one whole.

Only some people have the skills to change mundane into extraordinary and make sure their names go into books for posterity to remember.

We are all surrounded by plants and trees and understand their significance in our lives but do not understand the complexity of the plant kingdom. Pranakrishna Parija made this complexity his life.

He was born in a poor family, in a small village. Balikuda was where his struggle began. From very early on, he had an interest in studying plants, their structures and properties and all the processes that keep going on in their green and brown parts. While the world was busy cutting the green, he took an interest in studying their interactions with the environment.

Parija became an expert in botany. He became the first Indian student of botany to get a reward from Cambridge. As he kept going up on the ladder of success, he became an inspiration for the young in his field. Arousing the interests of many in science, he was successful in making botany a well-known branch of study and a promising career choice.

For his efforts and contributions, he was awarded a Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He was also honoured by the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Great feats are not achieved through simple means. Parija was a disciplinarian and that is why he stood strong to face the vicissitudes of life with equanimity and steadfastness. He believed strongly that our minds should always be open to the truth, no matter how distinct our beliefs. He remained a student his whole life, even when he became an educationist and a professor at Cuttack College. Since then, he has been in various academic-administrative roles.

Padma Bhushan Dr Pranakrishna Parija OBE was a common yet distinct person with simplicity. Such was his dedication to knowledge, particularly to his field of study that the library of the college he taught in was named after him!

As an opponent he was polite, as a friend genial, as preceptor his counsel was rich, as a teacher, he could stoop lowest to lift up his students, as a father he displayed selfless love and in sufferings, he suffered heroically.

Dr Parija left the world of plants on 2 June 1978. The place he created in the world of botany is empty, waiting to be filled by someone who is equally dedicated and endued with a sense of responsibility as he was. That is how you ensure that your name becomes history, by becoming someone that no one else could be!