| More
Information |
|
|
|
|
| Category |
SRISTI Samman |
|
|
| Title |
Celebrating Traditional Wisdom and Innovativeness |
|
|
| Details |
Nathiben Sonara
(Metal, Bawara taluka, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat)
The 110-year-old Nathiben Sonara has three children and stays with her eldest son in Metal. She is a religious woman and dedicates most of her time to offering prayers. She participated in different kinds of agricultural activities when she was young. She was also an expert in preparing recipes using local plants and varieties of grains. She prepares dishes from the leaves of chil or lambsquarters (Chenopodium album), the yellow leaves of a variety of cactus called thor (Euphorbia nivulia), pods of khijado or prosopis and plants like dodi or cockwort. She has a good knowledge of medicinal plants found in the forests and had treated many ailments in children and labour complications in women. She even knows local practices for treating diseases in animals.
She was honoured with SRISTI Samman for having a great wealth of traditional knowledge.
Hariben Prajapati
(Bidaj village, Mhemdabad taluka, Kheda district, Gujarat)
The amiable 107-year-old Hariben Prajapati belongs to a family of traditional potters; she herself is an excellent potter and has a good knowledge of different types of clay. She can easily classify clay into different categories to suit a variety of structures. As she has spent most of her life in selecting and examining different kinds of soil for making pots, she can tell which type of land is most suitable for which crop. Her expertise in choosing soil has gained her popularity in her village.
SRISTI honoured her for possessing expertise in pottery and having a wealth of traditional knowledge.
Arkhaben Vankar
(Napania village, Ladvel post, Lunawada taluka, Panchmahal district, Gujarat)
The 102-year-old Arkhaben Vankar has faced many ups and downs in life. She has been through many hardships when her village faced drought. She has managed to survive during the periods of uneriokal and labhiokal, which are described as two different conditions of drought, by feeding on different plants and fruits found in the forests. She says that during this period she saved her life by feeding on plants like banth, kodra, samo and bavto, which even the animals refuse to consume. Maize was another crop that saw her through during drought.
She has been practicing traditional remedies for treating children's ailments: she provides herbal treatment for tonsils, asthama and stomach pain.
Even at this age she manages to walk for a few kilometres everyday. Her daughter says that Vankar can put thread into a needle and sometimes stitches quilt also. According to Vankar, the forest-based produce and hard labour are the secrets of her staying fit and healthy.
She was given SRISTI Samman for exuding phenomenal energy at this age.
Kankooben Parmar
(Amodra post, Baid taluka, Sabarkantha district, Gujarat)
The 110-year-old Kankooben Parmar is a concerned citizen and possesses immense traditional knowledge. She loves animals and expresses her love for them by feeding them and cleaning their sheds. She is very concerned about the environmental changes that are adversely affecting the ecological system.
Over the years she has observed the growth pattern of many plants to predict ecological changes. She claims that an average flowering in mango (Mangifera indica) trees is an indication of the average rainfall in a season and a good yield of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) and tamarind (Tamarindus indica) indicates a good rainfall.
Parmar received SRISTI Samman for her social and environmental concerns and knowledge of biodiversity.
Gopalbhai Suratia
(Katholi village, Sankheda taluka, Baroda district, Gujarat)
Gopalbhai Suratia is a man with a cornucopia of ideas: he is always busy experimenting with new things. He has innovated a cycle sprayer for spraying insecticides in the fields. He has used the wheels of an old bicycle for his device. The device is operated manually and one has to move around in the field on foot for spraying pesticides.
The advantage of this innovation is that farmers do not have to carry the spraying pump on the shoulders, hence reducing the burden on them. It is possible to spray insecticide in 0.25 hectares of land in an hour with this sprayer. The sprayer has a capacity of 20 litres. The efficiency of the sprayer in terms of the area covered by it per hour depends on the mobility of the user. It costs around
Rs 2,500.
Suratia has also developed a remedy for protecting crops against the attack of helionthis using dhatura or prickly datura (Datura metel).
He was given SRISTI Samman for innovating the cycle sprayer.
Chanchalben Rawal
(Jotana villages, Mehsana taluka, Mehsana district, Gujarat)
The 93-year-old Chanchalben Rawal has spent a large part of her life fighting poverty. Sometimes the poor economic condition of her family even compelled her to beg. At other times she worked as a labourer to earn livelihood. Despite these difficulties, she adjusted well to all kinds of hardships. She manages domestic chores on her own and even extends help to others. She is a good cook and prepares different kind of pickles. She is very popular among her relatives for this reason. She has developed expertise in treating various ailments of children. She treats vomiting and hernia in children: she suggests the oral intake of the crushed leaves of varnad for curing these problems.
SRISTI celebrated her fighting spirit that triumphed over the vicissitudes of life by honouring her with SRISTI Samman.
Kantilal Patel
(Raghvana Muwara village, Kothamba post, Lunawala taluka, Panchmahal district, Gujarat)
The 50-year-old Kantilal Patel has been treating the animals suffering from all kinds of diseases for the last 15 years. In many cases he has successfully treated cases in which the professional veterinary doctors have given up.
Patel has studied only up to the higher secondary level. His major source of subsistence has been agriculture and animal husbandry. He has developed local remedies for labour problems in animals. He has also developed solutions for the ailments like diarrhoea, bone fracture and intestinal infection in cattle. Apart from this,
he treats around 12 animals everyday in around
35 villages in the vicinity of his village with his experience and medical
expertise. |
|
|
| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 14(2):11-12, 2003 |
