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My Tributes
to Guruji
Dr. Govind S. Rajwar
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I was grieved when I came to know
about the sad demise of my respected and loving Guruji Professor
Som Deva Sharma, through e-mail from my friend Dr. G.S. Rawat,
Scientist, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun. My mind
immediately went through a glimpse of his memories.
I joined as a B.Sc. student in 1972 in DAV College. During final
year he taught us Taxonomy, that was my first interaction with
him. He was renowned taxonomist and most able and efficient
teacher. I was highly impressed by his style of teaching and his
tremendous knowledge. I had the actual and fortunate interaction
with him during M.Sc., when I chose taxonomy for my thesis work
because I was fascinated by his teachings and he had developed
my interest in this subject. He had such an art of telling about
the characteristics and occurrences of plants that the listeners
felt deep inclination towards this field. He allotted me the
area of Jharipani near Mussoorie, which is a thick forest along
the river Rispana. Since the terrain of the area is quite
difficult, which he showed me when he took me there for the
first time. That time I didn’t know that he was interested in
thorough botanical survey of that area. He also wasn’t sure that
I could do it. I visited the area twice a month for one and a
half years collecting the plants including the tough walk during
the rainy season because of flooding river and abundance of
leeches. Professor Som Deva many times accompanied me to this
area. I continuously reported him about the collection of plants
and my visits to that area.
Once our whole class accompanied Guruji and me to this area.
When one of my classmates uprooted a small and rare piper plant
from the rock, Professor Sharma asked him to plant it again at
the same place and not to collect it since it was rare. This
showed his love for plants in nature and his efforts for the
conservation of rare plants.
When I finished the thesis work,
he was highly pleased to see my progress since I collected
almost all the plants of that area including some interesting
plants like Aeschynanthus parviflorus, Saurauja nepaulensis and
some orchids. He told that in my collection there were 10 new
distributional records from Mussoorie hills. When I was
publishing some notes and papers on this work, he refused to
give his name as an author. This showed his nature of giving the
credit to his students. |
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After M.Sc. also he took me along during field trips with my
juniors. He always wanted to provide the skills of plant
identification and field knowledge to the students who had the
potential and eagerness for learning this science. When I was in
M.Sc. final year, he took me with a student of M.Sc. Previous
Mr. Shiv Prakash Dhyani, now a Scientist at Central Soil and
Water Conservation Research & Training Institute, Dehra Dun, to
Baysi located between Rishikesh and Devprayag for his thesis
work. Guruji took me to give field knowledge of that forest and
bore my all expenditure. He was such a simple person that he
didn’t even mind sleeping on a shop’s veranda with us there.
He wanted to promote his students in every sphere. I witnessed
one such experience with him. Once the Head Master of the Doon
School asked him to recommend a teacher of Biology. He asked the
address of Mr. Surendra Jain, now a Scientist at FRI, who had
just completed his M.Sc. then. I told him the name of his
village “Kandoli” where I had never been before. He asked me sit
on the backseat of his red colour Vijay Super Scooter and said
we will search his village. We reached Nanda ki Chauki near Prem
Nagar where we asked people the way to his village and reached
there by the kuccha village path.
When I was in Uttarkashi College, I invited him as an examiner
for practical examination, which he accepted on my request. On
the second day of examination he instructed me to take some
students with us to a forest in Asiganga valley. He collected
many species of orchids there, which he grew in plastic
containers on the trees of his house. Next year, when I visited
his house he showed me flowering in some of those orchids.
He always helped and guided me as a teacher and like a guardian
and a father. He has been a constant source of inspiration and
encouragement to me, which helped me in exploring the nature
further for knowing the vast plant diversity and conserving the
rare ones. He was a great botanist known not only in India but
also in different parts of the world. I am greatly indebted to
him for the knowledge rendered by him.
Dr. GOVIND S RAJWAR
Reader, Department of Botany
Govt. Post Graduate College
Rishikesh 249201, Uttaranchal
Phone: 0135 2454131 (R)
E-mail: rajwargs@hotmail.com
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