: How to Grow a Bonsai Garden: This Banker Has 550 Trees on His Terrace! #IndiaNEWS Mangat Singh Thakur, an 80-year-old retired banker from Rohini, Delhi, was in his forties when bonsai were first introduced

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How to Grow a Bonsai Garden: This Banker Has 550 Trees on His Terrace! #IndiaNEWS
Mangat Singh Thakur, an 80-year-old retired banker from Rohini, Delhi, was in his forties when bonsai were first introduced to India in the late 70s.
This, he notes, was thanks to the efforts of Nikunj and Jyoti Parekh, who founded the Bonsai Study Group of The Indo-Japanese Association. A few years later, he says, Dr Leila Dhanda popularised the art form in the capital when she set up the Indian Bonsai Association. “And I had the fortune of running into a group of women who worked for her, at a kitchen garden I used to frequent,� he says.
“I didn’t even know what a bonsai was back then, and funnily enough, they didn’t have much of an idea either. However, they explained the basics and I attended my first workshop at (ITC) Maurya Sheraton soon after. I come from very humble beginnings and felt hesitant about even entering the hotel premises. But as I found out more about how to grow bonsai plants at home, I only became more interested in the art,� he adds.
Despite his inclinations, Mangats work and family responsibilities kept him preoccupied until 2001. Then, as a retired man, he could finally dedicate the better part of his days to perfecting a green thumb, and presently nurtures as many as 550 bonsai plants on his rooftop terrace in Rohini.
“It was about 35 years ago that I potted my first bonsai, a banyan tree. I still have it today. During the initial years, I used to spend hours pondering over books on bonsai techniques. But from the dozens of books available in my neighbourhood’s libraries, only a few were penned in Hindi. I decided if I’d ever get the chance, I’d write one myself. And now, I am,� Mangat tells The Better India.
SInce 2019, he has also been sharing detailed tutorial videos about the exotic plant’s cultivation and maintenance on Bonsai Factory, his YouTube Channel with nearly 9,000 subscribers.
“For the past few years, my main goal has been to ensure that bonsai techniques reach the common man across the country. If we introduce it to marginalised farmers from rural and remote regions, they can properly utilise their existing land and resources to establish an extremely profitable model. With my videos, [I hope] they can at least discover that they have the option to do so, and figure out how to get started,� he adds.
While Mangat is done authoring his book, he says the accompanying photographs and illustrations are yet to be completed, adding that he is eyeing a release in April next year.

‘More of an artwork than hard work’
“The best thing about growing bonsai is that you do not need any special seeds to get started. You can use any plant that has the capacity to grow into a tree,� he notes.

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