CHENNAI: What do you do when you lose your job? You grow water lilies. Well, that’s what Mohammad Khaleel Hussain from Balapur in Hyderabad did, and blessings have been blooming ever since.
Unlike other kids who used to collect toys or tazo cards, Khaleel used to love collecting plants. In fact, he used to make sure that he carried all his green friends with him whenever they moved to new houses.
“After I had a particularly nasty fight with the landlord some eight years ago over my plants, my sister invited me to keep them in her house. I created a small garden on her terrace and used to tend to it every weekend, says Khaleel adding that he was working in IT sector at that time.
However, in 2009, he was given the pink slip and started working at another company for half the salary, but lost that job too thanks to downsizing there.
“I was married at that time and my wife advised me not to go back to the IT sector. I turned my hobby into my business. I have been selling water lilies commercially for the last three years now,” he adds.
Taking about his initial days in the business, he says, “I decided to choose an exotic, uncommon flower (water lily) to start our business. I procured some native water lily varieties through my friend, but when I joined a couple of online forums, I came to know that people were paying Rs 1000 for one plant of a few exotic water lily varieties. That’s when the idea of growing exotic water lilies came to me.”
He bought his first lot from Germany. Now, he has 150 varieties of water lilies.
He also grows plumerias which he imports from Thailand. Some of the varieties that he is growing are Rubra, Bowman, Purple Fantasy, Milky Way and others.
“The depth of the water can be between six inches and two feet. If the water is more than two feet, sunlight will not reach the flowers properly.”