NEEM, THE GREEN GOLD

The Neem trees (Azdirachta Indica) have started to flower all over India. 

 Since American firms such as WR Grace et Agridyne, have tried to patent Neem, the Indian Govt may have started realising that they may be sitting on a pile of gold. Or have they? Every third shop today in India is an allopathic medical store. Neem is one of the most neglected, underused, overlooked trees in India. Yet its properties are unique: its bark is wonderful against malaria and sometimes even early cancer; its oil extracted from its seeds and fruits is an excellent natural pesticide that has been used effectively to protect cashew nut flowers against insects (instead of the deadly pesticides that Tamil Nadu & Kerala farmers indiscriminately spray repeatedly). Its leaves, its seeds, its small branches, have unique medical properties that used to be known in India millenniums ago. “Neem is Shakti”, says Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, for it discriminates. An antibiotic kills the good and bad microbes, whereas neem only eliminates the bad and spares the good”.

Here a few simple easy to do yourself recipes:

1)    Pick up about 20 young neem leaves early morning, wash them under the tap and put them in a blender with a glass of fresh (or mineral) water. Blend for 3 or 4 minutes. Strain it and drink that wonderful deep green juice before breakfast (for those who find it too bitter, add some liquid jagry). It keeps away worms and amoebas, clears your blood and is good for the liver.

2)    Enema has become a dirty word today, but it’s a highly effective way of cleaning one’s intestines and getting rid of the poison that accumulates there, specially for the non-veg people. Pick up in the evening 2 or three whole young branches of neem. Wash them under the tap and boil them whole for an hour. Keep it covered for the whole night so it soaks well. You can administer yourself the enema in the morning in your own bathroom with a simple device that is cheap and easy to find in pharmacies. I recommend at least 3 repeats, 2 days in a row, four or five times a year.

3)    Pick up the seeds of the neem tree, dry them in the sun and put them in a blender with one or two block of rock salt. The brown powder that comes out is an excellent toothpaste, that is not only good for the teeth because of its antiseptic properties, but rubbed gently on the gums, protect & strengthen them, something that modern toothpastes do not do.

 Adds on Indian TV, promoting some rubbish toothpaste or some miracle whitener (why do Indian girls crave for whiteness, when brown is so sexy and westerners spend billions in creams to get brown on their beaches?), it makes me mad. India has so much ancient medical knowledge still alive in Ayurveda and simple rural remedies such as neem, tulsi, oe Aloe Vera. We do hope that the craze for westernization that was also part of the Congress and Sonia Gandhi’s brief, will metamorphose in a return to the ancient roots with Mr Modi, while adopting all that is good in the West.