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By Shonar Joshi Good
news for asthmatics. Help is at hand with the famed fish therapy of Hyderabad,
capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Knowledge of this
unique treatment has been zealously guarded by a Goud family of
the city for over a century.
So when was the last time you had fish? I'm sure it wasn't the kind I
had. A two-inch murrel, wriggling between two fingers. My mouth, filled
with a yellow herbal paste, opened wide. A hand pushes the squiggling
fish straight between my upper and lower molars. No time to feel squeamish.
The fish is punched as far back as possible down the gullet, free to swim
around in your body. Jaws are clamped shut and the back thumped. The murrel
now races towards its destination. What I am talking about is the famous
Bathini fish medicine, available in the southern Indian city of
Hyderabad. The therapy is conducted every year on the auspicious Mrigashira
Karthi day of the Hindus, which falls between June 6-8. The takers
are asthmatics-young, old, toddlers and invalids.
Started by the BathiniGoud family, the therapy has been
a secret for the past 156 years. It was given to Veeranna Goud, a toddy
vendor, over a century back by a holy man who instructed him to give this
free to everybody suffering from asthma. The holy man also blessed a well
in the place where the medicine is administered - Doodhbowli, a mile or
so away from the historic monument of Charminar in Hyderabad. Only the
Goud family knows what goes in the herbal paste. The blessed well in their
compound provides water for the mixing of the medicine. At present, three
Goud brothers carry out the treatment, strictly in accordance with the
practice of their ancestors. Even today, they don't charge or accept any
money for the medicine. Instead, they pay for all the expenses from their
own pocket.
There is now an abundance of volunteers in the family who have mastered
the technique of administering live fish into the mouths of fearful patients.
Die-hard vegetarians can swallow bananas with the paste instead, but the
Gouds emphasize the importance of fish. As the fish moves down the windpipe,
it opens pores blocked by phlegm, thus making way for the herbal paste.
The procedure is simple. Once the patient has swallowed the live fish,
three doses of extra medicine is provided, to be taken on three successive
auspicious days - Arudra Karthi, Punarvasu Karthi and Pushyami
Karthi, which fall every 15 days in a regulated span of 45 days. Apart
from this, the patient has to be under strict diet control for 45 days.
The diet is probably harder to swallow than the live fish. You literally
have to practice being a martinet. With only a handful of edibles allowed,
patients labor through rigorous self-control, abstaining from everything
except the food items prescribed. Says Harinath Goud, one of the three
Goud brothers: "Unless you strictly adhere to the diet, the effect of
the medicine will not be optimum." Besides, what is a period of a month
and a half when weighed against a life of breathless struggle? Every fortnight,
morning and evening, two pills made out of the paste are taken without
fail with warm water. The reason for the fortnightly gap is as much of
a secret as the medicine, yet it is religiously marked on every patient's
calendar. Life resumes normalcy on the 46th day. But cured? Well, this
is no one-time miracle. The Gouds state categorically that the fish medicine
has to be taken for three consecutive years. Says Sheela Chakravorty,
a patient: "The first time I took the fish, it was hard to follow the
diet. I was tempted to eat, not delicacies, but simple things such as
eggs and coffee, and maybe use a few spices that weren't allowed. The
next year, I was more relaxed and took it upon myself to follow it through.
And I did. Today, I am 75 per cent cured."
There
are many such people who have struggled on the difficult path of fish
therapy and succeeded. Most notice an improvement in the first year itself.
But there's no fixed pattern to the treatment. There are also some who
feel no change. The reasons are plenty-perhaps the diet was not followed
properly or the asthma had gone far beyond mortal help. Yet asthmatics
from all over the country-and abroad - converge at Hyderabad on the specified
day to try out this 'wonder-therapy'. Skeptical doctors, many of whom
hail from the allopathic school of medicine, label the treatment illogical.
Some claim it to be nothing more than faith healing, where the psychological
state of the patient compels him to believe he can be, and is being, cured.
After all, a man who can't breathe is quite desperate.
Others say the medicine has small quantities of cortisone mixed in it,
which gives relief from arduous breathing. But this has been proven wrong
as the medicine has been checked and certified by pharmaceutical authorities
in India as a purely herbal and ayurvedic cure. Further, doctors
who are more open to the idea of age-old remedies and alternative therapies
accept that, no matter how skeptical you may be, the cure of thousands
of patients year after year is clear evidence of the therapy's effectiveness.
I can personally vouch for the efficacy of this treatment. A chronic asthmatic,
after taking the fish medicine I was not as sick even in the dreaded month
of July as I had been all these past years. A break in the wheezing pattern
that my lungs have followed for the past 25 years cannot be written off
as coincidental. I rather look on it as a miracle of God and Goud alike.
As a direct consequence of the fish therapy's popularity, different organizations
have begun promoting similar cures in other parts of India under the banner
of 'Fish Medicine from Hyderabad'. Everything is the same—the date,
the yellow paste-like-medicine and the fish. "But," says Harinath Goud,
"there is nothing in common between them and us. We don't divulge the
secret ingredients of the medicine and hence it is impossible for these
cloning organizations to know what goes into it." Skepticism and plagiarism
notwithstanding, every year in Hyderabad you see a motley crowd: the timorous,
the confident and the curious, standing in long serpentine queues before
the blessed compound of the Gouds. While some of them may lose interest
in the cure and not come again, others will simply thank the Lord, mark
the calendar for the following year, and go again for the big gulp!
Good
news for asthmatics. Help is at hand with the famed fish therapy of Hyderabad,
capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Knowledge of this
unique treatment has been zealously guarded by a Goud family of
the city for over a century.
There
are many such people who have struggled on the difficult path of fish
therapy and succeeded. Most notice an improvement in the first year itself.
But there's no fixed pattern to the treatment. There are also some who
feel no change. The reasons are plenty-perhaps the diet was not followed
properly or the asthma had gone far beyond mortal help. Yet asthmatics
from all over the country-and abroad - converge at Hyderabad on the specified
day to try out this 'wonder-therapy'. Skeptical doctors, many of whom
hail from the allopathic school of medicine, label the treatment illogical.
Some claim it to be nothing more than faith healing, where the psychological
state of the patient compels him to believe he can be, and is being, cured.
After all, a man who can't breathe is quite desperate. 
