India, March 14 -- How does a person dedicate 48 years of their life to. gourds - is a question Narinder Pal Singh Dhillon doesn't believe you should be asking.

A plant breeder, commercial farmer and former professor at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Dhillon laughs gamely as he points out that these vegetables "are nutritionally and economically important, especially for small-holdings farmers".

He himself has been nicknamed the "prince of pumpkin" and "baron of bitter gourd", he adds; nicknames that were first awarded to him by Maureen Mecozzi, former director of communications at the research organisation World Vegetable Center (WVC; previously the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center).

Over 20 years, Dhillon ha...