Bangalore man raises healing gardenJayashree Nandi, TNN | Apr 10, 2011, 11.05 pm IST
BANGALORE: Darshan Shankar's garden is lush and green but with a difference. It is raised to heal.
His garden, on the fringe of the city, near Yelahanka airbase, is his labour of love. It has over a thousand varieties of rare medicinal plants. He wants to bring back to the city a way of healthcare that was once a part of every household.
Shankar who started the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) with the idea to enforce conservation of thousands of medicinal plants, herbs and methods available inIndia, is now the owner of some of the most precious databases of traditional healthcare knowledge.
When he came to Bangalore in 1993, he was alone but inspired by the knowledge of tribals in Karjat where he lived for twelve years.
"I used to see them use plants for their own well-being and their primary healthcare was through traditional knowledge. With the same idea we started this institute so that citizens could raise their own gardens of medicinal plants. We landscape their gardens so that citizens know of the huge wealth in healthcare that we could access," he says.
Apart from maintaining databases of medicinal plants in the wild, scriptures about tradition healthcare formulations, Shankar and his team maintain a nursery of medicinal plants for home gardens, they also provide basic knowledge and training to communities. For instance, homemakers who want to develop the system at their houses could avail training from FRLHT. The team has landscaped housing societies in the city and institutions like NAL, NCBS, Income tax buildings, properties under BDA and even BMTC. They have provided training to students of Christ College and Mount Carmel and around 300 schools.
"We have a GIS system to map where every medicinal plant is found. We want people to change their gardens from exotic plants to useful medicinal plants," he adds.
For citizens, Shankar has recently started an Ayurvedic hospital too, with around 100 beds. The hospital presently has the sophistication of mainstream diagnostic procedures like scans and ECG but the treatment is a mix of various traditional therapies. As far as communities outside Bangalore are concerned, FRLHT engages with local communities like tribals at remote spots where these herbs and plants are found.
When asked about the fading away of traditional systems of care in households, Shankar says, "We are not happy. I wish more people knew about what they could do. People could come here and learn."
Shankar's informatics department has some information that citizens could access for free. For instance, their website has an entire page on herbal home remedies with easily available plants like turmeric, hibiscus, tulsi for digestion problems, fevers, skin care and many others that citizens could access from home. They also have documentation of literature from 1,500 BC to 1,900 AD of around one lakh manuscripts and medicinal formulations.
Shankar who calls himself a social entrepreneur chose Bangalore to develop the institute because the entire peninsular region is the richest in medicinal plants and access to both the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats is easier from here.
BANGALORE: Darshan Shankar's garden is lush and green but with a difference. It is raised to heal.
His garden, on the fringe of the city, near Yelahanka airbase, is his labour of love. It has over a thousand varieties of rare medicinal plants. He wants to bring back to the city a way of healthcare that was once a part of every household.
Shankar who started the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) with the idea to enforce conservation of thousands of medicinal plants, herbs and methods available inIndia, is now the owner of some of the most precious databases of traditional healthcare knowledge.
When he came to Bangalore in 1993, he was alone but inspired by the knowledge of tribals in Karjat where he lived for twelve years.
"I used to see them use plants for their own well-being and their primary healthcare was through traditional knowledge. With the same idea we started this institute so that citizens could raise their own gardens of medicinal plants. We landscape their gardens so that citizens know of the huge wealth in healthcare that we could access," he says.
Apart from maintaining databases of medicinal plants in the wild, scriptures about tradition healthcare formulations, Shankar and his team maintain a nursery of medicinal plants for home gardens, they also provide basic knowledge and training to communities. For instance, homemakers who want to develop the system at their houses could avail training from FRLHT. The team has landscaped housing societies in the city and institutions like NAL, NCBS, Income tax buildings, properties under BDA and even BMTC. They have provided training to students of Christ College and Mount Carmel and around 300 schools.
"We have a GIS system to map where every medicinal plant is found. We want people to change their gardens from exotic plants to useful medicinal plants," he adds.
For citizens, Shankar has recently started an Ayurvedic hospital too, with around 100 beds. The hospital presently has the sophistication of mainstream diagnostic procedures like scans and ECG but the treatment is a mix of various traditional therapies. As far as communities outside Bangalore are concerned, FRLHT engages with local communities like tribals at remote spots where these herbs and plants are found.
When asked about the fading away of traditional systems of care in households, Shankar says, "We are not happy. I wish more people knew about what they could do. People could come here and learn."
Shankar's informatics department has some information that citizens could access for free. For instance, their website has an entire page on herbal home remedies with easily available plants like turmeric, hibiscus, tulsi for digestion problems, fevers, skin care and many others that citizens could access from home. They also have documentation of literature from 1,500 BC to 1,900 AD of around one lakh manuscripts and medicinal formulations.
Shankar who calls himself a social entrepreneur chose Bangalore to develop the institute because the entire peninsular region is the richest in medicinal plants and access to both the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats is easier from here.
(source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
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