Some grow flowers to enjoy their colours, others want to relish their fruits but Gouri Sankar Sasmal does not care much for these. He works on medicinal plants. He has something for flu, stomach ache, arthritis... so much so that even doctors drop by to pick up curative leaves from his garden.
Yes, it is a garden but one wouldn’t be wrong to call it a scientist’s lab, for Sasmal constantly experiments to find the most efficient techniques for growing plants.
I picked up the bulk of my gardening knowhow from the State Library Victoria in Melbourne, where we had gone to visit my son in 2018 and ’19. The next year, of course, the pandemic started and though locked in at home, I got ample time to practise it all.
If we all grew plants, India would never suffer from food scarcity. This is why I promote plants like the Moringa. In India, we know this plant as Sojne and chew its drumsticks but its leaves are also highly nutritious.
I also want to showcase gardening as an activity for the rich and poor alike. I have plants all over my compound but not a single one has been purchased. I pick up branches from here and there, nurture them in my nursery and plant them in pots.
And not just money, I try to save water too. Our reverse osmosis (RO) water purifier, for instance, drains out a lot of water that isn’t fit for drinking but is rich in minerals. I use this to water certain plants that do not need the soil at all, such as microgreens. Mulo, Methi, Sorse, Sprouts…these can be grown with water alone and the microgreens are ready to eat in a week.
I have a passion for medicinal plants — Thankuni, Brahmi, Basab, Gynura procumbens (Longevity Spinach)…. I love gifting them too. In fact, we no longer take sweets to friends’ houses but, say, a box of Long Pepper, that cures cough and cold. The Thai Basil is so effective against the cold that a neighbour — who is a doctor— comes to takes its leaves.
Then this other time, a neighbour had a fall and started bleeding. But even before calling doctor, her husband rushed over to my garden for some herbs I had told him help clot blood. It brought her relief and gave me great satisfaction.
If you have a garden you tend to yourself, send your address and contact number to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abp.in
