Shankar Kishore Chaudhary with his elephant foot yams in Hajipur. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 22: Forty-eight-year-old Shankar Kishore Chaudhary from Hajipur in Vaishali district had never imagined that his passion to grow elephant foot yam (ool) would some day earn him national recognition.

India Innovates, a programme started by Doordarshan last year, has made a 25-minute documentary film on Shankar’s skills of preparing 56 edible items from yam. The show will be telecast tomorrow on DD Patna at 7.35pm.

Shankar’s fascination for yam started when he watched Mother India as a child. The film had a scene where Nargis finds a small piece of yam while ploughing her field and brings it home to feed her two children.

“On returning home from the theatre, I asked my father if yam was sufficient to satisfy the hunger of her two children. My father replied in the affirmative and said yam contains many herbal and medicinal values. That day, I had decided to grow yam. I did not forget my dream. At the age of 30, I bought yam seeds from Samastipur and began farming on a plot of land spread across 1,360sqft. The first harvest weighed seven quintals,” Shankar told The Telegraph.

“Inspired by the harvest, I moved on to Muzaffarpur and started farming yam on four acres of leased land. The yield was over 500 quintals. At present, I cultivate yam on 15 acres of land in my home town. I produce 150 tonnes of yam every year,” he added.

Shankar’s endeavour does not end on his farmland. He reads several books on the benefits of yam. “Now, I can make 56 edible products like sweets, sauce and pickles. I can also prepare samosa, papad, roti, raita, kofta, khichdi, kheer and laddoo from yam.”

Born to a humble family, Shankar now makes a net profit of Rs 2 lakh every year. He also motivates other farmers to take up yam farming. “When I got a call from Doordarshan Patna about one-and-a-half months ago and they told me they wanted to make a documentary on my farming, I was very happy. The shooting took place at Jadhua Bada village on February 14 ,” he said.

A science graduate from Magadh University, Shankar has also done food preservation craft course from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. “It is not an easy task. You must have all practical knowledge about yam farming,” he added.

India Innovates producer Suveer Verma said: “The brain child of this programme is Tripurari Sharan, director-general, Doordarshan. It aims to highlight the talent and skills of people in creative work, mainly in rural areas.”