What would you do if the world was all of the sudden out of medicine, pain killers for your migraine, ointment for your itch, pills for your stomach? Take a second and think about what YOU would do.

In Auroville we met with Pitchandiculam, an organization that works with the forest in many different ways, all ethical, one of the ways being promoting natural medicine.

‘Remember your future garden‘. Our nature, that once were our kitchen and our pharmacy is being exploited to an extent that will come to backfire us in the future. Much of our original and natural products are being removed, and with that also natural herbs and plants that can be used for medical purpose. Today we put much trust on mass-producers of food, drinks and medicine, much which is fabricated, polluted, packed in plastics and aluminum, produced and shipped in unethical ways. Our bodies are changing to fit the world that we live in now and the things that we put in our mouths. At Pitchandikulam we were reminded that we must not forget the nature around us, the natural products that are far more sustainable than the pharmaceutical products and that the solution to a head ache, a soar throat or an itch can be closer to us than the closest pharmacy. At Pitchandikulam they wanted us to think of the nature as our future garden, what we do to it today will impact us tomorrow. So if we hypothetically would be out of medicine or the prices would rise so that we couldn’t afford what we needed, how would you want your future garden to look like? What plants and trees would you put there?

With these question Pitchandikulam wanted to point out that much of what you buy, you can produce yourself. Use your own garden or kitchen to grow plants or food that can sustainably feed you and treat the illnesses that you come across. Important to emphasize was that they of course realizes that you cannot leave everything to the nature, there are sicknesses and complications that is better treated in the hands of a doctor, but much of what we treat today, such as headache etc, can be dealt with in a more ecological friendly way, for our bodies, the nature and our wallets, we can ourselves grow a primary pharmacy at home that could help us to the same extent as the medicine we get at the pharmacy.

When I was younger we would use a special leaf to treat the burn from a stinging nettle. Also it is known that ginger, garlic and lemon are good ingredients to treat a cold, plums are good for hard stomachs and a diet of warm beverages and soups cleans your body. Natural resources that are more sustainable than the pills we take.

Do we really need our mass-producing pharmaceutical companies to the extent that we are using them today? – the answer is no.

Nothing is perfect, everything comes with a consequence, we just have to choose which decision, which garden we would like our children to stand in a 100 years from now when the world might be out of balance.

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Safi Sabuni, Linnaeus University