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Dr Dinabandhu Sahoo was on a trip to talk up the economic potential of seaweeds in India, but that visit also sowed the seed for a similar campaign to drum up support for cherry blossoms.
It was March 2014. Dr Sahoo was in Shillong, capital of the hilly north-eastern Meghalaya state, to deliver a TEDx talk on cultivation and utilization of seaweeds when a tree, with its glossy bark and iconic dainty flowers, caught the marine biologist’s attention from his hotel room.
Dr Sahoo, 60, familiar with the sakura tree from his frequent visits to Japan, knew what he was looking at – it was an unlikely cherry blossom tree in India.
He asked some locals if they had any idea about the tree, but they knew little. Further research told him it was a specimen of prunus cerasoides, a cherry blossom tree endemic to the Himalayan region.
With visuals of crowds enraptured by cherry blossom trees in full bloom in Tokyo playing on his mind, the sakura, he thought, could similarly generate tourism and promote livelihood opportunities in the north-east, one of India’s lesser developed regions.
A seemingly improbable idea germinated in him that day. “I thought if I ever return to the north-east, I would create a cherry blossom festival,” Dr Sahoo told The Straits Times. “I said I will make it happen for India.”
More than eight years on, and with the support of local state governments and many stakeholders who participated in the planting of over 60,000 cherry blossom saplings and continue to support their upkeep, that vision is a blooming reality.
India has two annual successful cherry blossom festivals – one in Shillong and the other in Mao Gate in Manipur (another north-eastern state) – embodying its growing love affair with the sakura.
