‘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!
