Dr. S. K. Mukherjee, Raju Sir & me

Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee, The Curator of CNH, BSI, Calcutta

It was June 13th, 2012, i received a mail from Raju Sir, relating to my post in eFlora of India. It was our first virtual meeting and later i met him on the 17th July, 2012, at his Shibpur residence, adjacent to the Indian Botanic Garden, Howrah.

I am a life science teacher in a high school and have had no interest in plant taxonomy, though i sometimes photographed a few plant with a view to sharing those in the net, specially to our group, eFlora of India.

On the very first day (17-July-2012) Raju Sir gifted me a few booklets and other memorabilia. One of those booklets was "Excursion Flora of Simhachalam Hill". As i read the book i obtained Raju Sir's permission to scan (photographed) it so that it could be freely available in the net. This book can be downloaded at - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bw2Gn5nxK-KCSWY4enBKSW9URnM/edit.

If you go through the pages of the "Excursion Flora of Simhachalam Hill" you will notice that Raju Sir dedicated this booklet to Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee, the Curator of Central National Herbarium, BSI, Calcutta. Dr. M. N. Sanyal also remembers Dr. Mukherjee in his book "Handbook of Excursion Flora of the Gangetic Plains and Adjoining Hills".

It was 1966 and i was merely a 2-yr toddler at that time when "Excursion Flora of Simhachalam Hill" was published. My mother says that my father was posted at Shibpur F.S. at that time. A month ago i also received an ePhotograph from Raju Sir showing him and Dr. Mukherjee among other BSI stalwarts. Botanical Society of Bengal arranged a seminar to pay tribute to Late Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee on the 9th January, 2010.

At the time of writing the above article i searched the net if i could find any photographs of Dr. S. K. Mukherjee.  I couldn't find any.

This April (15th, 2013) we, i and Dr. Raju, could manage to visit and pay our respect to the family of Dr. Mukherjee.

We had a pleasant chat with the son and grandson of Late Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee. I took this opportunity to record a few photographs, of Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee and of his son & grandson, chatting with Dr. D. C. S. Raju.

I learn that Dr. Mukherjee is survived by his wife, Padmabati Devi (94), son, Dr. Suradas Mukhopadhyay. an agricultural scientist and two daughters, Sephali Bandyopadhyay & Tamali Roy.

In my next episode i will try to give more account on the works of Dr. Sushil Kumar Mukherjee.

THANK YOU