Hotline To Nature

‘Finding Meera’s house will be easy. You will see a bunch of carrots and beetroots on the door!’

‘When a guy comes to see her daughter, Meera will offer him a glass of palak juice and a plateful of raw radish’.

These jokes, at my expense, had sprung from my new-found liking, err, love, err infatuation, err passion for Nature Cure.

A chance encounter with a Naturopath in the one-room Prakruti Jeevan Kendra, had me hooked to Nature Cure-for life. The books in the library there became my Bible and Gita and the words of the Naturopath my Ten Commandments and Upanishads. ‘Madam, fast once a week to get rid of your dandruff’, was the doctor’s first prescription. ‘How is your carrot consumption?’ was his query when I told him of my bleeding gums. ‘squeeze some coriander leaves in water and put a spoonful in each eye’ went his mantra for itchy eyes.

‘I do not have a bottle of Vicks at home’ was perhaps the statement from the Naturopath which made me his firm disciple and avid fan.

From eye care to hair care and simple good health, I drank up all the knowledge in the books there while he cleared all doubts. “Disease is not natural, good health is”, went one hard-hitting aphorism.

The body tends to heals itself if it is allowed to.

Fever and pain are not problems, they are indicators of disturbances in the body and so are our friends.

My kids became guinea pigs. From coughs and colds to boils and tooth ache, I approached the Naturopath, like an eager student. Diet – no sugar, friend stuff, refined flour – for my son and more exotic therapies like enema and steam bath for my daughter…I do not remember with what bribes I stilled the vociferous opposition put up by my daughter but it didn’t matter; I HAD to try out and understand Nature’s ways.

‘Mother’s touch is best. Give your son acupressure’ taught the naturopath when I had to deal with an emotionally disturbed teenager.

Twenty years down the line, after relocating more than five times and losing sight of the naturopath, my hotline with Mother Nature is firmly established. The words of the Naturopath have been like permanently recorded messages, guiding me along. I have never failed to begin my day with tulsi-soaked water in a copper pot (‘sip by sip’ he had said); I simply cannot have more than one kind of cereal at a meal (‘do not mix cereals’); fruit is the first solid meal of the day (take your fruit on an empty stomach to get the maximum benefit). Along the way I have experimented and innovated; serendipity has helped me find more natural ways of living and healing. There is no sight more beautiful for me than Mother Nature healing a wound, covering up, like with strokes of a brush, an unseemly white patch of skin. Or a bald patch on the head recover lost hair by ‘methi juice’ therapy. The wonders worked by simple cold water in healing pain, sprains and stubborn corns on the feet have strengthened my faith in Mother Nature.

Oh yes, I have my share of grey hair and knee pain. I love the grey and I welcome the knee pain as another occasion to call Mother Nature on the hotline. Sure enough, I have thrown out the tablets prescribed by the bone specialist!

It is another matter that, in the fast Mumbai life, my daughter has to guzzle down antibiotics for her sore throat to report to work, when I would have hastened to give her a warm glass of tulsi decoction! She describes her visits to exclusive spas and parlours, and I can only think of the enema can, still in the loft!