Encircled by farmhouses leaving a narrow lane to arrive at, Gabardi based Umesh Debbarma’ s pond looks hardly similar to any other nearby pond. Lines of empty packed water bottles elongated parallel to each other gives a sense that a special kind of culture is going on there at the first glance but no one can definitely tell as to what Debbarma is culturing in his pond actually.
It was Anananta Debbarma, son in law of Umesh who had finally revealed the hidden coffers and shown the caged Oysters in their pond that were being cultured for pearls. People may disagree to this as, since childhood, we were being repeatedly told that pearls could be only found in saline water or in easy words in seas. But, the freshwater culture of pearls had been made possible in freshwater too after long research and employing scientific innovations.
However, Umesh is not alone. Umesh, a schoolteacher by profession got the idea of fresh water pearl culture from his friend Chittaranjan Datta. Ananta Debbarma, the son in law of Umesh said, “My father in law got the idea from Chattaranjan Datta (Chitta Da). He had undergone training on pearl culture at West Bengal. Later, he shared his experience with my father in law and we also started pearl culture”
According to Anananta, they had started this culture in November 2019 and the first lot of the Oysters would meet the age of maturity in the next month. “We had just started it last year. We will get the pearls next month”, Ananta added.
On being contacted, Chaittaranjan Datta who had also cultured pearls in another pond at Bisalgarh said, “the journey begins with a short video that I have come across in the social media platforms. Out of my curiosity, I have gone to East Medinipur of West Bengal to learn this art. The organization charged me Rs 8,000 of five days rigorous training”.
According to Datta, some technical interventions needed to be ensured before entering this culture. “It takes a time of 13 months to get pearls. I have started culturing pearls jointly with my friend at Bishalgarh last December and in the next couple of months we will get the results’ ‘, Datta said over the phone.
Both Umesh and Ananta hoped that if they got a good result from the first round of investment they would start it on a large scale.
