Samskruti Talks | The Forgotten Family - An interactive Journey

Speaker : By : Dr. Veni Madhavi, Botanist and social activist

Summary:

Presently, most of us are staying in apartments due to paucity of land. Now, we see independent houses in villa complexes apart from houses in villages. Let us focus on the plants existing and available in our immediate vicinities. As one may reminisce, there was a pattern of trees in our front and back yards in village houses. Tulasi (Ocimum sanctum/tenuiflorum) is the most common and prevalent plant in Indian households. There were fruit trees, vegetables plants, flowering plants etc. in the typical yards. The children in olden days had the opportunity to scale the trees for plucking fresh fruits and thereby also learn life skills.

(The participants were able to identify some of the plants displayed in the power point presentation of the speaker, including flowers of Ganneru (oleander) a member of Apocynaceae.)

The oleander flowers of different varieties which have their characteristic fragrance are lost in the modern trend of cultivated flowers derived from miniature and hybrid plants. In earlier days, people knew the name of every tree they came across or had grown. It may be noticed that the plants named by the gathering here bear local names. The local names may be in Telugu, Hindi or Sanskrit. Our connection with ground was preserved then both physically and metaphorically. But, in the modern era of high rise buildings, the greenery is provided as a miniature replica of original flora. Open area available in apartments gets apportioned into sit -out, cloth liners, storage, utility area, small customary plants like Tulasi and some exotic plants. The scanty available place is now occupied by ornamental and name-sake greens in apartments which has become a new normal. The open spaces in and around dwelling units are getting continually reduced to one balcony under the pretext of providing a common open space called Club House. Due to such relocation of spaces, there is no luxury of having mid-day sun rays vertically and we get only oblique sunrays in mornings or evenings. Though we are living in the tropical region of the earth, we are deprived of direct sunlight in our apartments.

In the present gardens, though enough space is available for local and indigenous trees and plants, we tend to grow dwarfed exotic varieties incurring a lot of investment on maintenance, manures and pesticidal applications. They are mostly croton like plants with not much tropical colour distribution among their parts. We can know that they are living plants only after pinching them. Though equator receives maximum energy in the form of sunlight and we are located in the equatorial region, we are depriving ourselves of productive use of that energy. The countries located in equatorial region including India have great bio-diversity and variety of flora. Sun is synonymous with greenery, herbs, flowers, fruits, vegetables, prosperity, abundance and wellness. Even the items offered to Gods in Poojas- Patram, Pushpam, Phalam and Thoyam  are a boon from the Sun. These items were readily available in every household earlier. But, now we are forced to buy them from the market and store them in refrigerators.

Upon recollecting distant childhood days, one will understand that we were always identified by the place we lived in and the surroundings we had. We were very close to Nature, spending our time basking under trees, climbing and perching on trees, plucking flowers etc. Our vicinities had many a healing herbs and shrubs. The elders to a large extent and children too to some extent knew the local names of all the plant bodies that are around us. Any plant which has a local name has a definitive role to play in nutrition and health of the local population. The local plants were a part of our staple food. Existence of a local name is regarded as test to decide whether a particular plant is indigenous or an exotic and foreign plant.

We are gradually losing touch with the soil as we are raising the apartment’s heights and are also losing on sunlight and are getting closer to temperate climate environments. The generations to come are losing their natural touch to climb trees. Now, corporates conduct special programmes in metros taking the children to experience arboreal lives by charging fees.

We need to plant indigenous plants as part of afforestation or Vanamahotsava rather than planting foreign plants which may have adverse impact on health and the climate and of the region. We should resolve to grow only plants with local names in any region to protect the individuality and personality of the tree and to protect the environment in the region by seamlessly integrating the planted trees.

Even grass varieties have their own personalities and use. The common Darbha (Desmostachya bipinnata) and Garika or Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) have specific places and uses in the Indian way of life. The present garden and lawn culture are foreign to India. The border plants on lawns are made to behave like walls and be non-living objects. Even in our temples, we have begun following western concept of gardening. We are eager to grow only cultivated flowers with no natural fragrance. We don’t give importance to different medicinal and pooja leaves, which is evident from the fact that we are not adept in identifying leaves as we are in identifying flowers. Even the temples are not having any cultivable areas to be dedicated to raising plants for both usage of leaves and flowers. Temples are decreasingly maintaining lotus pond.

We need to grow local ritual practice-specific, ornamental and medicinal plants instead of unknown and exotic plants. We need to decode the names of various plants and trees listed and enumerated in our Vedic literature to modern scientific names and make them available on a large scale in nurseries. Indigenous flowers give off great fragrance when used in Utsavas in temples but surprisingly we are preferring to acquire and use stale imported flowers as part of Utsavas. The same fact can be found in wedding ceremonies. The grand decorations entail external application of perfumes and scents, which can be avoided if local flowers are used.

Our elders have already recorded the relationships between the birth Star/Rashi/Nava Graha (Nakshatras and Signs and Planets) and the tree governing the fate of a person born on such Star including the medicinal changes that can be brought in that person by such plants. The effects of such trees on such persons on prolonged association have also been recorded. Each tree is a scientist/Rishi and has immense research experience/penance to give apt fruits/grains/flowers to suit the local needs. Efforts are on to publish the above results and are also for creating patents.

Dr M. Maruthi Sharma, a distinguished member of the medical community, supplemented the talk by providing information on medicinal values of certain plants. He said that ‘Ganneru’ has some atropine content in it, which causes an increase in hearing sense. Nandivardhanam (Pinwheel Flower)/ Tabernaemontana divaricata has cooling effect on body. Lot of research work is done by USA  (San Diego Botanic Garden's Medicinal Plants Project). Literature is available on the chemical nature of plants, presence of alkaloids and their extraction methods. Anti-carcinogenic and anti-viral research is also being done on these plants.

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