PASSION OF COLLECTING HERBS
TURNS INTO FULL TIME WORK FOR THIS VERINAG GIRL.

TAWQEER HUSSAIN
Hailing from south Kashmir’s Verinag area, Tabasum Jan 21 gave herbal remedy to increase the memory power. Her herbal treatment has made her the recipient of the prestigious Sristi Samaan award from National Innovation Foundation (NIF) of India in 2007, only girl in valley till date to hold this award. She is also the only female collaborator working with Grass Root Innovations and Augumentation Network (GIAN) Cell, University of Kashmir.
Eighteen years old Tabasum discontinued her studies after class tenth to help her mother in her day to day work. In childhood, she developed an interest in embroidery and started devoting her time in it. Along with it she also started learning traditional herbal practices from her Grandmother. She has good knowledge about herbs and their medicinal uses. She gives herbal medicines for anaemia, memory loss, stomach ache, ear pain and other ailments.
“My Grand mother although illiterate had high knowledge of these herbs. She used to give this herbal Medicare to the entire village for dozens of ailments. People always throng to our house for prescription” recalled Tabasum.
With the death of her Grandmother, people still came to our house only to go back empty hands, as there was no one to follow the Grandmother’s footsteps. This thing always pinches me and soon i thought of giving life to this herbal practice again. Also With the passage of time, people became relying mostly on the English medicines and this traditional herbal practice was put in to the darkness.
Keeping this practice alive Tabasum’s first patient was her own father Abdul Gani Ganie who was suffering from the memory loss.
“My father always used to double check the power switch. He was mot sure whether he had turned off the switch or not. He would at times come out of bed during night to checkwhether the power has been switched off or not. I became eager to check this disturbing situation and i came yo know that my father is suffering from memory loss” says the young innovator.
Once I took out the courage and gave my father couple of doses of “Ded” (Read dead ) herb and after couple of days i found positive results and soon i gave it to some of my friends who were also satisfied with its result.
I became very happy and thought of distributing this knowledge among others so that everybody will get benefit from it, but due to the limited resources i could not make it.
One day while sitting at my home I found some persons from the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) of India and outside my house enquiring about my herbal practices. They asked several questions to me about the Ded herb and its use. They told me that they want to share my practice to the entire country. Initially I hesitated but later Anil K Gupta, Chairman of the NIF explained me the work of NIF and at that time I submitted my herbal practice to them.
I explained them the whole process and also told them that the Herb Ded is used to increase the memory power and irrespective of the available memory increasing agents in market, this herb is from any side effects. The same thing as later proved by the researches done by NIF and my herb was approved as the memory increasing agent.
After six months, I received a communiqué from the NIF about being selected for the Sristi Samaan award.
In the year 2007, i went to the Ahmadabad to receive the honour. This honour boosted my morale and soon I started devoting my entire time in searching the new herbs. Some girls also joined me in the process and today we are a group of 20 girls carving out this hidden herbal Medicare.
This girl of high morale and honour was ignored by the GIAN cell, until this reporter called them.
“ i worked hard and collected some unique herbs but the people from the GIAN cell always ignored me with” rued Tabasum.
Talking to this reporter, Chairman GIAN Cell, university of Kashmir accepted that the girl was ignored because of the mis-understanding and communication gap, but he adds that she will join us as the collaborator in the coming month.
“Initially due to the communication gap, Tabasum was ignored only because we don’t know about her, but recently when i came to know about her innovation, i sent a team headed by Dr Shabir Ahmad and motivated her to come here. Today she is our only female collaborator in the valley” said Dr. Ghulam Mohi-Ud-Din Bhat, Chairman GIAN Cell, university of Kashmir.