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Saying it with flowers!
Special nursery, special occasion... Rajdhani Nursery is all set for Valentine's Day in New Delhi. Photo: R.V. Moorthy.
COME VALENTINE'S Day, and many would be seen landing up at New Delhi's Rajdhani Nursery in Jorbagh. What could be a better gift than flowers on this occasion, they `used' to believe! But now, the times have changed and so are many people`s attitudesSays Mohammad Wasim Khan, the owner of the nursery, "Before occasions like the Valentine's Day and Diwali etc, we get huge orders for many indoor and potted plants for gift purposes." And they have all reasons for getting such huge orders. The nursery is spread across seven acres and houses at least 800 varieties and sub-varieties of plants, from ornamental to medicinal including fruit plants, timber trees, shrubs, creepers, Bonsai, ground covers and around 40 shades of flowers: all from different parts of India. What makes this nursery special? Well, it has plants up to 30 feet in height that the Khan clan prepares in their farmhouse in Meerut. The more important point is, be it Rashtrapati Bhawan, Prime Minister's Office, embassies or five-star hotels, all buy plants from here only as Khan's claim goes. So when you would witness roses in Mogul Garden this year, just remember this nursery. Khan says President APJ Abdul Kalam is more interested in medicinal plants, specially spices as tejpatta, kali mirch and so on. So they have decided to plant them separately now. The PM House buys ornate plants from them, he informs. All these big names do not make nursery's plants unaffordable though. The price range begins from three rupees. A palm variety called Cycus Revoluta costs the highest, Rs. 37,000, Khan says.
As he talks about the nursery 30 years ago, the scene here was just the opposite. This was a jungle where wild animals would reign and part of it was used to bury `taziah' during Moharram.
It all started in 1974 when Abdul Moid Khan, a technical man working in Okhla Industrial Area, met Sahdev Singh, the then secretary of Horticulture Department, Government of India, both from Meerut. The latter after knowing that Khan's maternal grandmother's house in Meerut grew a special variety of peach, ordered some plants. Khan gave his first supply to Singh keeping a margin of Rs.2000 as profit, "apprehensively". Seeing the excellent variety, Singh ordered more. Encouraged by huge profits, Khan left his job and started a nursery at Jamia Millia Islamia. In 1976, he was shown the piece of land called Karbala, which was illegally encroached.
"My father fought with police, DDA and many others to free this land and start his nursery here," recalls Wasim, Khan's son who joined him after his graduation several years ago. The rest, as they say, history.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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