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Born in New Delhi in 1949, Pradip Krishen was educated at Mayo College and St. Stephen’s College, and at Balliol College, Oxford. His first job was teaching history at Ramjas College at Delhi University. He joined a small, private firm making science documentaries for TV in 1975 and went on to direct three feature films: Massey Sahib in 1985, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones in 1989 and Electric Moon in 1991. His films have won significant Indian and international awards. He gave up filmmaking in 1993 and started to teach himself field botany. Krishen began by spending time in the subtropical jungles of Pachmarhi in the Satpura Hills of Madhya Pradesh. He started to identify and photograph Delhi’s trees in 1998, extensively exploring the city and its semi-wild fringes. In the course of his work, Krishen led numerous public tree-walks on Sunday mornings and became a keen ecological gardener. Krishen has created “native-plant” gardens in Delhi and western Rajasthan and has completed a significant rewilding scheme in a habitat of volcanic rock at Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, next to Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. In 2014, Krishen began work on a new gardening initiative at Abha Mahal in Nagaur Fort, Rajasthan. The following year, he took over as Project Director of the gardens of the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, and most recently, led a team of horticulturists and landscape architects to restore an extensive set of sand dunes in Jaipur city, Rajasthan. This opened in 2021 as a public park called “Kishan Bagh” (nothing to do with his surname!). A few other projects that he is working on at this moment are creating a wildflower meadow for Scindia School in Gwalior and restoring the natural ecology of a clayey riverbank on the Chambal river in Rajasthan.Krishen’s book Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, published by Dorling Kindersley/Penguin Group in 2006, met with popular and critical acclaim and became a best-seller in India. His second book Jungle Trees of Central India, published by Penguin India was released in 2014. His most recent publication is Abha Mahal Bagh: A Garden of Wild Plants from the Thar Desert came out in 2019).
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About the Lecture Series
The Indo-American Community Lectureship in India Studies is a part of UC Berkeley’s Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies, a chair endowed in 1990-91 with the support of the CG of India in San Francisco, the Hon. Satinder K. Lambah and hundreds of members of the Indo-American community. This lectureship enables ISAS, with the support of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), to bring prominent individuals from India to Berkeley to deliver a lecture and interact with campus and community members during a two-week stay. Past Lectureship holders include Upendra Baxi, Andre Beteille, Madhav Gadgil, Ramachandra Guha, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Narendra Panjwani, Anuradha Kapur, Ashis Nandy, Amita Baviskar, Romila Thapar, Nivedita Menon, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Nandini Sundar, and Tanika Sarkar. Read more about the series or listen to past lectures HERE
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PARKING INFORMATION
Please note that parking is not always easily available in Berkeley. Take public transportation if possible or arrive early to secure your spot.
Event is FREE and OPEN to the public.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
10 Stephens Hall, Berkeley, CA, United States, California 94720
