Discover the summary of Around a Medicinal Creeper by Poornachandra Tejaswi — a thought-provoking tale blending nature, indigenous wisdom, and human curiosity, highlighting the value of traditional knowledge in modern times.
Around A Medicinal Creeper Summary in English By Poornachandra Tejaswi
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Around A Medicinal Creeper Characters List : –
AUTHOR : The first character of Around a Medicine Creeper story is the Author. The author is himself a character in this story and he is narrating the entire story. The author believes in Ayurvedic treatment and believes that our country is a treasure of herbs. People do not know the correct way of using these herbs. People use more of allopathic medicines and this is the reason why they fall sick frequently. The day people learn to use herbal medicines made from herbs properly, they will live a healthy life.
MARA: The main character of this story is Mara who keeps the plot of this story closed through his thrilling stories. Mara identifies the medicinal creeper and tells one story after another to explain the miraculous properties of this plant. Mara is also a superstitious person, he believes that wherever this plant is seen it should be tied with tree because whenever it is needed it disappears. Mara’s stories are so strange that sometimes it becomes difficult to believe them.
SANNAPA: The third character of the story is Sannapa who is Mara’s companion. He is unaware of the herbs found in the jungle. Sannapa unknowingly brings medicinal wine from the jungle, seeing which Mara gets very excited.
WHITE MAN : The fourth character of the story is White Man, who is a British doctor and believes in Ayurvedic medicines. When he comes to know about a medicinal, he is ready to gift his entire plantation to get it.
MARA’S WIFE : – The fifth character of the story is Mara’s wife who is a housewife. When she cuts the leaves to make deer’s meat, instead of the dead deer there is a live deer’s husband who runs away into the jungle. According to the story, it was the miracle of those leaves that the dead deer came back to life. Mara’s wife does not know anything about those leaves and puts them in the fire to burn them. Even though she lives close to the jungle, she is unaware of the herbal plants found in the jungle.
APPANNA : – The sixth character is Appanna who is a poor person living in the village. He tells the writer that if the juice of medicinal creeper leaves is mixed in milk, the milk becomes hard but he has never tried it himself. Appanna, like the rest of the villagers, is also unaware of the proper use of herbs.
CHANDRU : – The seventh character is Chandru who is the writer’s friend and is a plant pathologist by profession. The writer along with his friends experiments by mixing the juice of leaves of medicinal creeper in the milk.
KRISHNA : – The eighth character is Krishna who is a labourer working in the writer’s field and believes in treating his illness with herbs. After getting boils all over his body for the first time and getting sick with piles for the second time, he gets himself treated by a Malyali sadhu and gets well.
MALYALI SADHU : And the last character of the story is a Malayali Sadhu who treats people with herbs but he never tells anyone which herb should be used for which disease. The Sadhu believes that if the importance of herbs is shared with people then they will stop doing the practice. This view is not only of the Sadhu but of all the healers and doctors who treat people with herbs.The author says this perception needs to be changed.
Summary of Around A Medicinal Creeper By Poornachandra Tejaswi
Today in case of any disease or injury we have a lot of choice as to what treatment we should use to cure ourselves, we can take Allopathic medicines, homeopathic medicines or we can also get treated with Ayurveda. The jungles and mountains of our country are full of such trees and herbs which have medicinal qualities but nowadays people do not have much trust on these medicinal plants. We want to cure our disease immediately for which only Allopathic medicine suits us.
At the beginning of the chapter, names of some spices have been written which are easily available in Indian kitchen. And these spices are turmeric, cumin, mustard, sesame, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, ginger and pepper etc.
The author says that if we have any type of medical issue like headache, neck pain or any wound etc. even today our grandmother does home treatment by using the things written above which is more effective and beneficial.
Through this story, the author wants to tell us that it is very beneficial to have knowledge of medicinal plants like creeper. He also tells that the entire system of Indian medicine is plagued by the myth that if people are told about these plants benefits and qualities, their medicinal qualities will vanish. Due to this belief, people today do not know anything about these medicines and herbs.
Our ancestors who knew the virtues of these plants did not share all this with their children or companions and kept it a secret. This is the reason that today we are using foreign medicines instead of using the medicinal plants found in our jungles and mountains. If this is not a curse, then what is?
At the beginning of story, the author writes that this is the story of a wonderful medicinal creeper; the author gets to hear many exciting stories regarding this medicinal creeper, some of which are true, some false and some imaginary. It took the author 20 years to know the truth about this creeper.
When the author is building a shed along the Mara to protect the coffee crop, they realize that they need creeper to tie up the bamboo. Sannappa brings some creepers from the nearby forest and one of them is a creeper that is used as medicine. Mara scolds Sannappa and asks him why he plucked this creeper and brought it? On which Sannappa says that there are plenty of those creepers in the jungle. Mara tells that it is a medicinal creeper and everybody gets excited. After reaching the jungle, Mara catches the stem of that creeper in a leaf and ties it to the tree planted nearby.
Moving ahead, the writer while describing this creeper tells that its leafs look like betel leafs in which the fruits look like a bunch of grapes. This plant grows in the rainy season, then very soon flowers and fruits appear on it and it also dies very soon. After this it grows again next year in the rainy season, that is why this plant is not visible in the months that follow the rainy season because it is not existing at that time. Whenever the villagers see this plant, they tie it with a nearby tree so that it gets caught quickly. This is the truth of this plant, not only Mara but the entire Indian medical system has converted it into mysterious stories.
Now the author tells the story of another day, he writes that one day Mara went to the forest to collect bamboo, while cutting the bamboo suddenly he cut his hand with the sickle. Seeing so much blood flowing he becomes frightened, then a man brings few leaves from the nearby jungle and bandages the wound of Mara with those leaves. This is about the time when our country was under British rule. Mara go to a British doctor who is also called white man and lives in a place called Hulihindalu. When the doctor opens the bandage of the wound he sees that the wounds are covered with some leaves. After removing the leaves he becomes surprised because there is no wound or blood there.
The doctor wants to get that plant so that he can treat his patients using those leaves. He tells Mara that if he takes him to that plant, he will gift him his entire plantation. Despite searching a lot in the forest, both of them were unable to find that plant.
So let’s listen to another story of Mara. Now Mara is telling another interesting story. He believes that mongoose and cowcal also know about this plant. If they are bitten by a snake, they immediately eat the leaves of this plant to cure themselves. So let’s move ahead, Mara has no teeth on the right side of his mouth, he has lost all his teeth. When the writer asked why he has no teeth, Mara tells another interesting story.
He says that once he went to hunt rabbits in the jungle. There was a river flowing nearby. He thought why not clean his teeth before going home. He breaks a piece of wood from a nearby plant to clean his teeth. His mouth turns bitter from chewing the wood. He feels that the wood is not good and throws it away. To improve the taste of his mouth, he puts stream water in his mouth and as he spits it out, he gets surprised because all his teeth which were touched up by that stick, break and fall out.
Hearing such unbelievable stories, the writers make fun of Mara but nothing has any effect on Mara. The series of his stories continues. The series of Mara’s stories has not ended yet, while telling another story he says that once he along with his friend hunted a barking deer. Barking Deer is a small deer found in Asia which barks like a dog. After hunting the deer, both the friends cut it into pieces and divide it into half. Mara wraps his share of deer in the leaves of a nearby plant and brings it home. Mara’s wife prepares the masala, boils the water and is shocked and astonished as she removes the leaves to add the meet.
The writer writes that it was a surprise of surprises because the mara tells them such things which no one can even imagine in their dreams. The mara says that there was a live deer in the place of meat, and they see that the deer rises and runs away into the jungle. According to Mara, it was the power of those miraculous leaves that brought a dead deer back to life.
Mara’s wife has no idea about the miracle of the leaves, she throws them in the fire to burn them. By Mara’s wife throwing the leaves in the fire to burn them we come to know how ignorant she is but it is not her fault. Neem Hakim and our ancestors who have knowledge of medicinal plants never shared this information with their children or friends. That is why all of us are ignorant.
We feel that Mara’s wife should have kept those leaves carefully because after examining them it would be easy to know whether those leaves have any medicinal properties or not. So there is a need to create awareness about our natural resources.
Now let’s move the story forward. Many years pass, Mara dies and once again the author encounters this creeper. This time the author sees Appanna trying to tie the creeper to the tree. On asking, Appanna tells that if the juice of this creeper is added to milk, the milk becomes hard. The author decides to do this experiment with his plant pathologist friend, Chandru. They put one litre of milk and leaves in a blender and blend them, then pour it into a vessel. After waiting for a few minutes, when the author touches the milk, it becomes hard.And when the writer looks at the milk after dropping it, it falls like jelly. From this incident, the writer understands that the creeper really has medicinal properties.
Describing another incident, the writer writes that there is a worker working for him, Krishna. Krishna has a problem of piles. A few years ago, when Krishna had boils all over his body, at that time a Malayali sadhu cured him by treating him with herbs. This time again Krishna goes to the same Malyali sadhu, the sadhu tells him about a plant whose roots are to be taken out and mixed with milk and drunk for 5 days. When the writer heard the description of this plant from Krishna, he was convinced that this is the same creeper which Appanna and Mara tied to the tree.
The writer takes Krishna to the creeper, both of them together take out the roots of that plant, as per the sadhu’s saying, Krishna drinks those roots with milk. He gets relief in just one day. After doing this treatment for 5 days, he becomes completely healthy. This creeper is so amazing. By reading all these stories and incidents we are able to understand that there is a treasure of amazing herbs in the forests and mountains of our country. The information about these plants and their benefits are known only to the local doctors. The problem is that these doctors believe that if they tell everyone about the medicines made from these herbs, then these herbs will stop being effective.This is a wrong thinking and this is the reason why India’s indigenous medicines are on the verge of extinction today.
Conclusion : –
From the story we can understand that the writer wants to tell the importance of Ayurveda. He believes that when treatment is done by herbs then it is more effective. It definitely takes some time for the disease to get cured but then the problem gets cured with time. There is no side effect of these medicines, these medicines are cheap and along with the treatment they also make the patient healthy.
It is the duty of Desi doctors to tell everyone about the beneficial properties of these herbs. They should tell everyone so that it becomes more and more famous and relieves the troubles of the people and makes the name of India famous all over the world.
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