Saviour!

Trust me!

Heard about this plant Akash Garuda (Kite in the sky / Airborne snake killer bird Garuda ) a couple of years back when I visited an age old temple at the foothills of Western Ghats. A shop in the temple premises was selling this with numerous other items which they claimed to be exclusive for the hills. It was touted as the best antidote for venomous bites... Poisonous things won't even dare to step in in the vicinity of Akash Garuda...it grows in air, needs neither soil nor water...it cures so many diseases, repels evil forces and so on.

I was skeptical thinking this was some kind of snake oil and forgot it almost instantaneously.

Recently a bunch of my cousins descended in my city to make a trek; a series of seven hills, one above the other, no roads - only narrow foot paths, no infrastructure to support the tens of thousands of people who visit on some special days to offer prayers to a shrine at the top of the seventh hill...basically a do or die kind of climb. Throw in a 'young at heart' oldie and the team was set!

(Incidentally the temple where I saw Akash Garuda was at the foot of these seven hills.)

Just before they arrived, I visited the base to gather 'life saving' information (level of oxygen, wild animals, availability of water, stuff to eat etc...) for these folks. Some kind of a special prayer session was going on on that day, with milling crowd. Makeshift shops were there everywhere, even an astrologer pitched his tent in this milieu...

There I saw a tribal woman selling stuff she had gathered from the hills above (by the way, these folks frequent the hills as if it is a walk in the park!). Her face tilled by life into so many lines, a frail frame and absolutely no visitors to her stall. I stopped by to look at the stuff she kept in small piles in a sack in front of her. Akash Garuda was her prized offering, I noticed. I asked her about the price of one tuber. She shyly said 30 bucks. I picked a couple and she right away threw in a decent discount even before I reached for my wallet. More than that, she folded her hands and thanked me as if I did a great help to her! I saw 'LUNCH' written large in her eyes...

Her gesture stayed in my mind (still stays!) and I decided to check more about this plant.

I hung one tuber at the entrance of my house and my wife took the other one to her work place :-)

What I found when I searched for AG is quite interesting:

Traditional healers love this plant and stock it in advance in order to use it readily when an emergency arises.

It grows leaves, flowers and fruits like any other plant albeit being suspended in air...

It grows only in dry hilly regions above certain height.

It derives its name due to its resemblance of ???

It is sold online for a minimum of 20 times what I paid!!!! Maybe this is the mother of all exploitations in doing business I think. One person from an online store with whom I talked to sounded as if 'he' risked 'his' life to fetch this tuber from those dangerous hills and so the hefty price for one tuber the size of a small potato!

I felt sorry for that tribal woman and felt ashamed to have witnessed such greed that was rooted on her ignorance. Her folded hands deserved much better...

The trekkers, they came back alive, barely!

None of them had any energy left to talk. One guy decided to leave the door of the rest room open, just in case if he needed help to get back up and another guy almost fainted looking at the small flight of stairs he had to 'climb' to reach his bag!!! He was to travel back the same night as he was scheduled to make a 'Presentation' to a bunch of top officials - we suggested a recliner to be positioned in the conference room for him :-)

We laughed till our voices turned

hoarse. Jolly good fun it was.

Akash Garuda has been growing happily ever since I hung it up...I haven't noticed any venomous creatures in its vicinity so far :-)