(Note: This article was published in ILLUMINE MAGAZINE, published in Siliguri, on 14th of April, 2008. The title of the article read “A Rare Endeavour: Meet the enterprising and industrious family”)
This family has had its roots in Kalimpong for over a hundred years. The extended family was presided over by the dynamic father-figure of Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan, a strict disciplinarian who did not like loungers and gossipers. His motto “change of subject is my rest” gave the worker a sort of a break after a long period at one job. Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan, the then President of the local Anchal Panchayat and a prominent social figure, wanted the hill people to learn how to earn money to supplement their income. With this in view, he, with help from his family, started various projects on a small scale.
The paper YOJANA, August 20, 1967 writes: ‘The five storeyed house was a veritable beehive of human activity. On the ground floor was a flourmill, on the first floor the printing machines rattled rather leisurely. The second floor was occupied for residential purposes. On the third floor we came across a modest noodle factory and an experimental workshop for manufacturing artistic articles from bamboo, and on the fourth floor there was the hum of modern knitting machines. In between, on the residential floor, a young lady was making artistic dolls, which had an unusual charm about them. On the floor, occupied by the noodle factory were a few bee boxes, a newly devised honey extractor and a few cement flowerpots growing some lovely hill flowers in them.’
Every member of the immediate and extended family was asked to take part in these projects. Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan treated everyone alike, be they sons or sons-in-law, daughters or daughters-in-law. What people thought or said about this did not bother him. The sons and their wives ran the printing pressses: the noodle factory was taken care of by a son-in-law, whose wife owned and supervised the flourmill. A daughter-in-law, who was also the Headmistress of a Montessori School, did the doll making, and a grandson worked on the bamboo craft. Another daughter had started a fruit juice making factory, where she also made jam and tomato sauce. Daughters and daughters-in-law were also taught how to rear silkworms up to the cocoon stage. These cocoons were bought by the government and sent for reeling and weaving to the mills in Malda. The son who helped in most of the agricultural and associated projects was Ananda Mani. At their home at 12th mile, he tried his hand at poultry, piggery, dairy, rearing goats and rabbits for meat, fishery, bee-keeping, button mushrooms, horticulture including the introduction of more productive varieties of rice, wheat and maize, making cement flower pots and hollow-blocks for buildings, flower and vegetable seed production, etc. Of course, with just a few persons concentrating on so many projects, they were experimental in nature. Once successful, Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan would write about these projects, speak about them to persons who came to see him and get them to try these projects out at home. Many of these projects were taken up by the people of the hills and some like poultry, dairy, silkworm rearing, horticulture are still being done with a fair amount of success.
Ganesh Mani Pradhan, a nephew of Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan, was very successful in producing hand made paper from scrap paper and Daphne (argali) bark. This paper, he used for printing rare Tibetan holy books and also greeting cards with colorful local motifs and themes. His father, Paras Mani’s younger brother was a student of horticulture and Ganesh took keen interest in his father’s subject too, and today he is one of the few experts in orchid culture. His beautiful house ‘Orchid Retreat’ at 11 1\2 mile, Rishi Road, Kalimpong, has a large orchid and flower garden worth visiting.
Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan, though a teacher, an inspector of schools and an educationist, felt that academic education was not enough. He wanted practical men and women, and though he encouraged and helped his children and many other hill children, to go as high as they could in their academic fields, for those who did not wish to go for higher education there was plenty of opportunity to earn livelihood from these and other projects. Under his strict discipline and self example, his children did and are doing well.
Three printing presses, one started nearly one hundred years ago by Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan’s father, are still running. They are now modernized and managed by the fourth generation of the ‘Mani’ family.
It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman. Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan’s wife had no formal education as such, but she took over the stupendous task of bringing up twelve children and looking after 21 acres of agricultural land, almost single handed, while her husband was busy writing text books in Nepali so that it could be made the medium of instruction in the schools of the districts for the Nepali children. It took many years for him to complete this task, and the brave gentle lady, loved by everyone who knew her, unperturbed fulfilled her commitment efficiently and cheerfully.
Dr. Paras Mani Pradhan, a ‘karma yogi’ to the tips of his fingers, and one who valued time as a precious commodity not to be wasted, and perseverance as the key to success, practiced what he preached literally till the very last hour of his life. He inculcated in his immediate and extended family the habit of working hard for long hours and not wasting one’s precious time. Even today those of his children who are left, all ranging from 65 to 86 years of age, still rise early and work steadily for long hours. This is a habit that has become part of their nature.
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