Police chief tries his hand in agriculture

KOZHIKODE: Sparjan Kumar IPS, the City Police Commissioner, has a special way of doing workouts. He doesn’t hit the gym at the stroke of dawn. He substitutes dumbbells with spade and shovel. He prefers a daily stroll along the small but luxuriant spread of land close to his residence in Malaparambu, Kozhikode.Tapioca, spinach, beans, pumpkin and bitter gourd, all sown, grown and now ready to be reaped by the IPS man, greet a pleasant day to their grower every morning.“Wherever I  have been posted, I have taken up some kind of agrarian work. More than a hobby, it is something I have inherited from my ancestors,” says Kumar.  He is backed in his pursuit by an MSc in Agriculture from the Andhra Agriculture University.Just four months into his tenure as the City Police Commissioner, he cleaned up the premises and transformed a rocky and sloppy terrain into a levelled piece of land.  “But the fertility of the soil is not good for undertaking agriculture on a massive scale. The land lacks nutrients and I do not use any chemical fertilisers. It is all organic,” he says.  Every morning, he works around two hours and sometimes in the evenings as well.  His son Samuel Joe follows his lead.The Commissioner repeats that agriculture is not a seasonal affair for him.  “Though my father was a teacher, he used to work in the fields when I was a kid. For me, it is something that is handed over through generations. It is not a stressbuster for me. Agriculture comes to me naturally,” he says.  He recollects how he had a stint with photography as a hobby but it fizzed out in a couple of months.His son reminds him it’s time for office and as he leaves, he points at small patch of banana grove and sighs, “Must be because of the soil, those plants have not grown like the others. Need to replant them where the soil is more fertile.”