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Ajgar lauki, tanpura lauki and sui-dhaaga: How a 64-year-old farmer is preserving desi seeds for posterity -Sachin Tulsa Tripathi

-GaonConnection.com

Ram Lotan Kushwaha, a seed conservator from Satna, Madhya Pradesh goes to great lengths to preserve and conserve traditional medicinal herbs and seeds of indigenous vegetables in his farm. The vegetables and seeds also find place in a desi museum he has set up.

Satna, Madhya Pradesh: Bottle gourds, in different shapes and sizes, are on display on one wall. Look around and there are other legumes of vegetables arranged neatly, in what is a museum of seeds. “I am in love with indigenous vegetables and herbs, they mean everything to me,” Ram Lotan Kushwaha, a farmer from village Atarvediya in Madhya Pradesh told Gaon Connection.

The 64-year-old farmer is on a mission to grow and conserve the seeds of indigenous vegetables as well as medicinal herbs.    

Ram Lotan has as many as 12 different varieties of lauki (bottle gourd) growing on his acre of land, besides brinjal and other vegetables. He also grows more than 250 medicinal plants. And their seeds are being collected and conserved in the museum he has set up.

Each of his lauki has a name depending on its shape, he laughed, pointing out to them. “There is an ajgar lauki, that resembles a python and a tanpura lauki shaped like the musical instrument, among others,” Ram Lotan said. Some of the vegetables are consumed and others are kept aside for their seeds or to be used for medicinal purposes.

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