January 2017

An old person, in his eighties, staying close to me in Mumbai rang bell of my home on a day and said, ‘I have brought prasad of Shegaon.’ (A holy place in interior Maharashtra) I took it with lot of gratitude and asked ‘Kaka (Uncle) when did you visit? and how? By train or bus?’ For I knew that both journeys are tough, especially at old age. To my utter astonishment he said, ‘I went barefoot, on yatra, with a group.’ So that means a new pilgrimage started, a new route, a new yatra started for the saint of Shegaon. People are not bothering whether it is said in old scriptures or not. They have that need, the feeling that they should go on a new route as well. Already many are going to Shirdi, Amarnath, Chardham, Kashi-Rameshwaram, Pandharpur, Shabarimalay, Kamakhya, and several other places in literally nooks and corners of the land of gods, India.

Awareness Programme at Sannathi street was organized by taking out a rally on 25th Jan. 2017. 650 Students from to SPA Girls school, St.Joseph Hr sec School participated

Medicinal uses

The root is poisonous but if administered carefully, it is a powerful cardiac tonic. Fresh leaf juice is used as eye drops to reduce swelling and improve eye sight. A paste of the root is applied externally to treat ulcers, leprosy, skin diseases, scorpion sting and snake bites (Bor and Raizada,1990; Shivarajan and Indira,1994).

Other Uses

This plant is a collector of dust and gaseous pollutants from the atmosphere. It is suitable to be planted along roadsides with heavy vehicular traffic, and around industrial areas (Boralkar, 1984).

At the behest of the Sri Jayaram Raja, Commissioner, Rameswaram Municipality, Bharat Swatch Abhiyan App in Mobile was explained by Sister Saraswathi. 32 teachers from Parvathavardhini School attended the programme on 5.1.2017. There was a lively question and answer session during the programme.