Ayurveda doctor Shardali Kulkarni received the International Award for Women in Ayurveda for a doctoral thesis on plants
used in African traditional medicine.

The passion with which Ayurvedic practitioner Kulkarni undertook a seven-year study on plants has earned her the prestigious International Award.

Kulkarni received the award from Prof PH Kulkarni of the International Ayurveda Association at the inaugural conference of The South African Ayurvedic Association (TAFSA) here on Friday.

Thrilled with the award, Kulkarni told PTI it had taken her a total of seven years to finalise the project: "I registered my research in 2005 with the European Ayurvedic Academy, and the book will be published in a month or two."

"For me, the most important part of the work was bridging the cultures between Africa and India. When I represent my own culture and got the honour to live in a country which has its own rich culture and traditions, it becomes my duty to look at that culture with some wider consciousness," she said.

"....I wanted to know all the secrets of African traditional medicine in an Ayurvedic perspective," she added.