India, March 15 -- 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". 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 has worked with the Thailand-based WVC to deve...