“Around a Medicinal Creeper: Question and Answers” is a whimsical tale that explores the themes of tradition, modernity, and the importance of storytelling. The story tells the tale of a writer who is visited by a stranger who claims to have a miraculous medicinal creeper. The writer is skeptical at first, but he eventually agrees to try the creeper as a remedy for his own ailments. Read More Plus One English Question and Answers.
The stranger tells the writer the story of the creeper and its origins. The story is full of magic and mystery, and it captures the writer’s ima
Around a Medicinal Creeper Question and Answers
Question 1.
Why are India’s native medicinal systems on the verge of extinction?
Answer:
India’s native medicinal systems are on the verge of extinction because of government apathy, scientists’ indifference and people’s ignorance.
As the author himself points out, the belief of the native doctors that if they revealed to others the secret of their medicines, the medicines would lose their potency has resulted in the loss of knowledge of traditional medicine. Secondly, since the sadhus and godmen have more or less been illiterate, the knowledge has not been carried forth in the written format. Thirdly, those like Mara who have benefited from such medicines, exaggerate the facts and hence the facts are mistaken for fiction.
Fourthly, even the educated lot like the author himself takes a long time even to pursue the matter and see if there is truth in the claims made by people such as Mara. In addition to all this, Ayurveda is dismissed by allopathic practitioners as bunkum. So, India’s native medicine has to fight the ignorance of the illiterate and the arrogance of the literate. Moreover, it has to combat the indifference of the government which has not really tried in a significant way to explore the possibilities of ayurvedic cure.
Question 2.
Why was the white man ready to give his entire plantation to Mara?
Answer:
Though the title of the article by Poornachandra Tejaswi is ‘Around a Medicinal Creeper’, we see that the whole lesson revolves around the stories narrated by Mara about a medicinal creeper. Most of the stories seem to be improbable though Mara swears to their veracity. One such story is about Mara going to the forest to bring bamboo shoots home and accidentally cutting the artery of his hand while cutting bamboo shoots. Mara told the author that the wound was bandaged after some leaf brought by someone had been placed over it. Mara had then gone to a white man at Hulihindalu for proper treatment. But, when the white man opened the bandage, there was not even the sign of the wound.
The white man, who initially thought that Mara was trying to fool him, was later interested in finding the plant. But, though Mara searched for the plant for an entire day, he could not find the plant. The Englishman, who had offered Mara his entire estate in exchange for the identification of the plant, was angry with Mara and even threatened to shoot him down. The Englishman thought that Mara was unwilling to show the plant because he was so greedy that the offer of the estate also did not satisfy him. The author too considers the story a cock-and-bull story and tells Mara that it should have been possible for him to find the plant if he had gone to the same spot where he was cutting the bamboo shoots.
For this Mara has no answer, but comes up with another fantastic story about the plant and its leaf. Thus, Mara’s narratives fall between the probable and the improbable because there is no particular reason for Mara to lie, but at the same time, the stories talk about such miraculous effects of the medicinal creeper that it is difficult to accept them as true.
Question 3.
How does Tejaswi come to the conclusion that “it is difficult to dismiss all of Mara’s stories as bunkum”? Why does he say that some little details remain to bother our conscience?
Answer:
Although Mara’s stories are tall tales which no sensible man would believe to be true, the author is conscious of the fact that Mara has nothing to gain by narrating such stories. Even if we take it as Mara’s compulsive lying, we should remember that he comes up with the stories only when questioned and doesn’t try to defend his stories passionately. There is a certain level of detachment in Mara when he shares these stories with others.
Moreover, there are others like Appanna who believe in the efficacy of the plant and the experiment which the author conducts with the help of his friend Chandru – a plant pathologist shows that the plant has some special qualities. The fact that Krishna, a farmhand, gets cured of piles without surgery is also proof of the efficacy of herbal medicine. That is why the author is of the opinion that India’s native medicine is worth being researched.
Question 4.
Narrate any two incidents narrated by Mara that bring out the miraculous healing power of the medicinal creeper.
Answer:
Mara has many fantastic stories about the miraculous healing power of the medicinal creeper. One such story is about Mara going to the forest to bring bamboo shoots home and accidentally cutting the artery of his hand while cutting bamboo shoots. Mara told the author that the wound was bandaged after some leaf brought by someone had been placed over it. Mara had then gone to a white man at Hulihindalu for proper treatment. But, when the white man opened the bandage, there was not even the sign of the wound.
If this narration sounds improbable, another incident that Mara narrates goes beyond all boundaries of reason. Mara told the author that a barking deer which had been killed and divided by him and his friends, transformed into a live buck and ran out of the house when the packet made out of the special leaves was opened. Mara added that his wife, without knowing the value of the leaves, threw them into the fire.
It is easier to believe the first story rather than the second because in the first story Mara talks about the healing power of a plant, and the miraculous effects of herbs is a generally accepted idea. However, the idea of a dead deer which has been skinned, cleaned and divided and then wrapped in leaves becoming alive on the packet being opened is next to impossible. So the question arises whether Mara was lying. If we defend Mara and argue that Mara had no reason to lie, then the only possibility is that Mara and his friends hunted a deer, brought it home assuming that it was dead and when released from the bundle, the deer, which was not really dead, ran away.
Question 5.
What story did Mara narrate about his fallen teeth?
OR
What story did Mara narrate about losing the teeth on the right side of his mouth?
Answer:
Mara’s stories were not limited to the miraculous medicinal creeper. Mara explained the loss of the teeth on one side of his face with another totally cock-and-bull story. He told the author that he had lost his teeth when he had gone hunting rabbits to the forest before daybreak. According to him, when he brushed his teeth with a small stick of a plant, he lost the teeth which had been touched by the stick. The teeth were all from one side because on finding the taste of the plant to be sour, he had thrown the stick away and had gargled his mouth with the water of a nearby stream.
Question 6.
How was Krishna cured of his illness?
Answer:
Krishna had piles problem and the only cure for it in allopathy was surgery. Krishna, an illiterate, was terrified of surgery and hence he went to the village godman for treatment. The godman, being old, could only give the description of the plant which could be used for his cure. Since the description matched the features of the miracle creeper, the author took him to the creeper which Appanna had tied to a tree and Krishna drank the ground tuber of the creeper with milk. He was cured completely in five days.
A Malayali sadhu had treated Krishna when he had started developing boils all over his body. The godman had given Krishna the bark of some tree, which he was supposed to crush and mix with duck’s eggs and eat. The full course of treatment was ten days. Krishna had been completely cured and after the treatment, he never got a boil again.
Question 7.
Why did Mara tie the medicinal creeper to the tree?
Answer:
Once the author was putting up a shade over a coffee seedbed. They needed something to tie the Cane pieces placed across the frame. So, he sent Sanna to get some creepers from the forest. He brought a whole bundle. Mara opened the bundle and while sifting he suddenly looked at one of the creepers and scolded Sanna for plucking it. On knowing from Sanna that there were many of these creepers in the forest, the writer along with Mara and Sanna went to the forest out of curiosity. There he saw Mara tying the creeper to a nearby tree referring to it a thief. Mara explained his actions by saying that the creeper was cursed by a sage that it wouldn’t be found by people when they needed it and searched for it. That is why it had to be tied to a nearby plant as soon as it was found.
Question 8.
What story of Mara surprised the white doctor?
Answer:
Mara had once accidentally cut the artery of his hand in the forest where he went to get bamboo shoots. As he started bleeding profusely, everyone was alarmed and took him to the white man at Hulihindalu for dressing his wounded hand. However, before going to him, people around him had pressed some leaf against the wound and bandaged it using a piece of cloth torn from their lungi. But when the white man opened the bandage, there was not even the sign of the wound. The white man initially thought that Mara was trying to fool him. But when Mara showed him the blood on his clothes and body, the white man believed him. The white man was surprised at the magical power of the leaf and offered his entire plantation if Mara could show him the plant.
Question 9.
What was the curse of the sage? What did Mara do when he found the medicinal creeper?
Answer:
Once the author was putting up a shade over a coffee seedbed. They needed something to tie the cane pieces placed across the frame. So, he sent Sanna to get some creepers from the forest. He brought a whole bundle. Mara opened the bundle and while sifting he suddenly looked at one of the creepers and scolded Sanna for plucking it. On knowing from Sanna that there were many of these creepers in the forest, the writer along with Mara and Sanna went to the forest out of curiosity. When Mara found the medicinal creeper, he tied its tendrils to a nearby tree. Mara explained his actions by saying that the creeper was cursed by a sage that it wouldn’t be found by people when they needed it and searched for it. That is why it had to be tied to a nearby plant as soon as it was found.
Question 10.
What was the narrator’s opinion about Mara tying the medicinal creeper to a tree?
Answer:
The first incident the author narrates revolves around his putting up a shade over a coffee seedbed to protect it from the sun. The author tells us that Mara, a servant, was annoyed with Sanna, another servant, for plucking a medicinal creeper. On knowing from Sanna that there were many of these creepers in the forest, the writer along with Mara and Sanna went to the forest out of curiosity. There he saw Mara tying the creeper to a nearby tree referring to it a thief. Mara explained his actions by saying that the creeper was cursed by a sage that it wouldn’t be found by people when they needed it and searched for it.
The narrator opined that since the creeper was not seen for most of the year and was seen only in a particular season, Mara tied it to a nearby tree to secure it so that it can be easily identified when someone needed it. After offering this explanation, the author laments the fact that even if the creeper has some medicinal property, it would get lost in the tales woven around it.
Question 11.
How differently did Mara and the author think about tying the medicinal creeper to a tree?
Answer:
Once the author was putting up a shade over a coffee seedbed. They needed something to tie the cane pieces placed across the frame. So, he sent Sanna to get some creepers from the forest.
Sanna brought a whole bundle. Mara opened the bundle and while sifting he suddenly looked at one of the creepers and scolded Sanna for plucking it. On knowing from Sanna that there were many of these creepers in the forest, the writer along with Mara and Sanna went to the forest out of curiosity. There he saw Mara tying the creeper to a nearby tree referring to it as a thief. Mara believed that the plant would not be seen when anyone needed it urgently because it had been cursed by a sage. On the contrary, the author believed that the medicinal creeper was a seasonal plant which appeared only after the rains, put forth flowers and fruits and died quickly. That is why no one saw it until the next rainy season.
Question 12.
What happened when Mara was cutting the bamboo shoot? How was he cured?
Answer:
Once when Mara was cutting bamboo shoots, he accidentally cut his hand. The sharp sickle had apparently cut an artery and it started bleeding copiously in spurts. Someone brought some leaf, pressed it against the wound and bandaged it with a cloth torn from one of their lungis. Mara then went to a white man at Hulihindalu for treatment. But, when the white man opened the bandage, there was not even the sign of the wound. The juice from the leaf had stopped the bleeding and there was no wound. The white man, who initially thought that Mara was trying to fool him, was later interested in finding the plant. But, though Mara searched for the plant for an entire day, he could not find the plant.
The Englishman, who had offered Mara his entire estate in exchange for the identification of the plant, was angry with Mara and even threatened to shoot him down. The Englishman thought that Mara was unwilling to show the plant because he was so greedy that the offer of the estate also did not satisfy him.
Question 13.
Why did the white man threaten to shoot Mara?
Answer:
When the white man opened the bandage and removed the leaf, there was no sign of any wound. When Mara showed him all the blood on his clothes and body and cringed before him saying that he was not lying, the white man was convinced that the leaf had medicinal properties and hence had cured the wound. Therefore, he asked Mara to show him the plant from which he had plucked that leaf and offered his entire estate in return. However, when Mara failed to show him the plant even after searching for it an entire day, the white man thought that Mara was so greedy that he was not satisfied with the offer he had made. He got furious and threatened to shoot him down.
Question 14.
How was Mara treated when he had a cut in his hand?
Answer:
The whole lesson ‘Around a Medicinal Creeper’ revolves around the stories narrated by Mara about a medicinal creeper. One such story is about Mara going to the forest to bring bamboo shoots home and accidentally cutting the artery of his hand while cutting bamboo shoots. Mara told the author that the wound was bandaged after some leaf brought by someone had been placed over it. Mara had then gone to a white man at Hulihindalu for proper treatment. But, when the white man opened the bandage, there was not even the sign of the wound. The white man initially thought that Mara was trying to fool him. But when Mara showed him the blood on his clothes and body, the white man believed him. The white man was surprised at the magical power of the leaf and offered his entire plantation if Mara could show him the plant.
Question 15.
How did Mara lose his teeth only on the right side of his mouth?
OR
How did Mara save himself from losing all his teeth?
Answer:
Once, Mara laid a trap in the forest to catch rabbits. He went into the forest before daybreak to take his catch. The trap was empty and so he had to trek back home empty-handed. Since there was a stream flowing nearby Mara decided to brush his teeth and wash his face before trekking back home. He broke a stick from a nearby plant and brushed his teeth a couple of times. When he brushed the teeth a fourth time, he felt a sour taste in the mouth. Then he rinsed his mouth taking some water from the stream. When he spat it out, all the teeth which had been touched by the stick tumbled out of his mouth. Then Mara realized that he had brushed only the teeth in the right side of the mouth and hence they had fallen out, whereas the teeth in the left side were intact, as he had not brushed them with that stick. Thus by brushing only the teeth in the right side of his mouth, Mara had escaped losing all his teeth.
Question 16.
Narrate Mara’s story about the meat of the barking deer changing into a live wild buck.
Answer:
Once Mara and his friend laid a trap and caught a barking deer. As they had to divide it equally between them, they took it near the stream, skinned it, cleaned it and divided the meat. They wrapped their portions in some leaves and brought them home. In Mara’s house, they prepared the masala with spices, put the water to boil and opened the packet to take out the meat. Instead of the meat, there was a live wild buck. The meat of the barking deer had been changed into a wild duck by the leaf in which it had been wrapped.
Question 17.
How did the milk become firm and rubbery?
OR
Describe the experiment conducted by the narrator and his friend Chandru to know about the hardening of milk.
Answer:
The narrator learnt from Appanna that if the juice of the leaves of the creeper was put into milk, it would become hard. The narrator decided to test it. The narrator plucked some leaves from the creeper and told his friend Chandru, who was a plant pathologist, about it. They put the milk and leaves into a mixer and switched it on. After mixing the juice of the leaves and the milk thoroughly, they poured it out into a vessel. After a while, the milk had become firm and rubbery. When they inverted the vessel, the whole thing fell out like a moulded cast.
Question 18.
How did the Malayali sadhu cure Krishna of his piles and boils on his body?
Answer:
Krishna approached a Malayali sadhu for help to cure his boils which had started developing all over his body. The godman gave Krishna the bark of some tree. He had to crush the bark, mix it with duck’s eggs and eat. He had to take this course of treatment for ten days. Krishna was completely cured, and after the treatment, he never got a boil again.
Later, when Krishna changed his job and became a rickshaw driver, he developed piles and started passing blood with his stools. The only allopathic treatment for piles was surgery, and if he opted for it he would be forced to be in the hospital for several days and he would lose his income. Therefore, Krishna went to the Malayali sadhu again for the help. But, the sadhu had grown old and did not have the strength to search for the plant which was needed to cure bis piles.
However, the sadhu gave Krishna a good description of the plant and advised him to dig out the tuberous root, mix it with milk and drink the medicine for five days. The next day, when Krishna was looking for the medicinal creeper, the narrator inferred that Krishna was also looking for the same creeper which Mara and Appanna had tied to the nearest tree. The narrator took him to the plant and both of them dug up its tuber. Krishna ground the root and drank it with milk. Within a day his piles improved and were completely cured in five days.
Question 19.
Narrate how the swelling of the narrator’s right heel disappeared.
Answer:
While Krishna and the narrator were digging up the root, the narrator happened to eat just a small piece of it to see how it tastes. It tasted slightly bitter. The narrator’s right heel had been paining for quite some time. Then, there appeared a swelling next to the bone of his right heel. When he consulted a surgeon, the surgeon advised the removal of the swelling through surgery. But a few days after the narrator had eaten the piece of root, the swelling had disappeared.
“Around a Medicinal Creeper” is a reminder that we should always be open to new ideas and experiences, even if they seem strange or unfamiliar. We should also believe in ourselves and in our ability to overcome challenges.