Pradip Krishen

Career

Film-making

Before becoming a documentary filmmaker (Krishen made popular science documentaries).

• Massey Sahib: 1985 Hindi movie of Francis Massey, who is the 'English Type Babu' at the Deputy Commissioner's office, in a small, tribal district town of Central India in 1929. This film won 'Best Actor' Award for Raghuvir Yadav at the Delhi International Film Festival (1986) and the film won a FIPRESCI prize at the Venice Film Festival 1987.
• In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones: 1989 Indian English TV film, in which it captured the anguish among the students prevailing in professional institutions. It is based on the life of students of School of Planning and Architecture At the 1988 National Film Award it won the award for Best Feature Film in English as well as Best Screenplay for Arundhati Roy.
• Electric Moon: A 1992 Channel 4 production, spoofed game-park tourists, erstwhile royals, social pretence, and ecology. At the 40th National Film Awards, the film won the award for Best Feature Film in English.

Krishen began work on a 21 episode television series intended for Doordarshan called Bargad / The Banyan Tree, a project Krishen was forced to abandon before completion, due to interference from the production house he was working for.

Environmental work

Starting in 1995, Krishen began studying trees and spending time in the jungles of Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, with the help of a forester friend. Krishen taught himself field botany and began identifying and photographing Delhi's trees, extensively exploring the city's green habitat. In the course of his work, Krishen led numerous public "tree-walks" on Sunday mornings and became a keen ecological gardener. Krishen has created "native-plant" gardens in Delhi, west Rajasthan, and Garhwal, and is currently working on a large rewilding scheme at Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park near Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. He was briefly associated with the Aga Khan Trust in an eco-initiative in the Sunder Nursery in New Delhi. In 2014, Krishen began work on a new gardening initiative at Abha Mahal in Nagaur Fort, Rajasthan. The following year, he took over as Project Director of the gardens of the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, and most recently, leads a team of horticulturists and landscape architects to restore an extensive set of sand dunes in Jaipur city, Rajasthan.

Krishen's book Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, published by Dorling Kindersley/Penguin Group in 2006, met with popular and critical acclaim, and became a best-seller in India.

Krishen's second book Jungle Trees of Central India, published by Penguin India, was released in 2014.