Living with HIV? Let Giloi be your flatmate!

This weekend was quite special for me. No, I didn't have a smashing date, didn't watch a great movie or dine out. What I did, instead, is this: plant a Giloi (Tinospora cordifolia) creeper in my balcony garden.

Giloi or Giloy - also called Guduchi.

I had been looking for Giloi for several months - July to be exact. That was the month I shifted from Goa (where it was very commonly found) to Hyderabad and ever since, I had been on the lookout for a Giloi plant. Finally, after a long search, my mom discovered this creeper in the garden of a neighbo who thought it was a wild nuisance and was about to pull it out and throw. So, I did a timely intervention!

Now, what makes a Giloi so special for me or us? Lets see: this is a plant you can use for a number of sicknesses such as Jaundice, TB (Tuberculosis), Piles, constipation and chronic fever. As I often suffer from common cold and hay fever,Giloi is just what I need.


But , above all else,  Giloi strengthens the immune system which is why it is the greatest gift of nature for  those living with HIV

A number of  medicine brands (with dried Giloi extract) are available in the market.But here is how you can use it at home.

Take a one-foot long branch of giloi, add five to six leaves of Tulsi (sacred basil) and boil in water for 15-20 minutes.. Add black pepper and a little rock or black salt, or Misri (palm candy) to make it sweet. Let it cool a bit and drink this concoction while still warm. 

If you have piles, then boil giloi leaves and have that extract with butter milk. 

This is  of course our traditional (community) knowledge. If you need experts' opinion on the effectiveness, click here 

So, go ahead, plant a Giloi today - it wont take much space, can grow in a corner,around that pillar with little supervision!

As for me, I have to wait for my creeper to grow a bit. After all, its just a baby now!

Basil - Grow, Munch, Enjoy !

Its sometimes shocks me to know that most of my friends in India don't know how to eat Basil. In big cities, a few boutique-type vegetable shops do sell basil, but the buyers are all restaurateurs.

It shocks me because I have eaten lemon basil as long as I can remember. And frustrated with 'no basil' situation, I took to growing them a few years ago. Turns out, they are extremely easy to grow! Doesn't need more attention than what you give to a Tulsi/sacred basil plant.

The common way to basil is of course as a flavor add on or as a salad leaf. So, one day I thought of trying an 'Indian' way - fry the leaves. The result was quite impressive! The leaves were thin and therefore cooked quickly. With each bite, you get the strong flavor filling your mouth, your nostrils, while the fried leaves, coated with corn flour, tempts you to snack on.

Another experiment that I did was cooking basil with tiny local fish. Clean the fish, mix them with a thick paste of turmeric, salt, ginger, green chili and garlic. Finally, add a liberal amount of finely chopped basil and  and cook in steam . The taste is so good, you will not forget for quite some time!

Another weekend is here. How about flavoring it with a bit of basil - the oriental way?

Land Lotus - A Magnificent Edible Flower!

'It must be the season' - the voice of  Joan Baez fills in my room as I write the first of my whispering green stories. And indeed, it IS the season of the green (or, shall I say pink?) I am going to write about today: the Land Lotus.


The tree of the land lotus can grow as big as 8 feet,but its branches are very light and fragile. From August, I would wake up early and look all over the tree in our garden for the sign of  a bloom. And one day - not before mid-September though- I would see two or three of the magnificent beauties spreading their pink petals.

The Land Lotus (Also known as Confederate Rose,Cotton Rose or Cotton Rosemallow)

Pink in the early morning, the color of the flower changes, growing one shed darker every hour. And then, by sunset, its almost red!


That this is an edible flower is something I learnt form my granny.