Alternative Medicine

 

The world of medical treatment  is a little different in this part of the world I should say

 

When a person falls sick, the first steps are to drink very hot water and chew a handful of neem leaves. The logic behind this is, a person falls sick because of some foreign body in the body. And , it will die because of the heat of the hot water or by the bitterness of the neem leaves . Of course none of these are expensive and do not harm the body

If it is some minor ailment , with a couple of days of the above treatment, the body heals itself and there ends the matter. If it so happens that the person is still sick , the next step is a visit to the god-man (samiyadi) of the local ayyanar temple. Ayyanar is a village based God – considered protector of the people crops and cattle.  He normally throws a handful of holy ash on the face of the patient with a ferocious sound and then gives some more to apply on the forehead for the next  two days . If the patient fell sick because he/she been  threatened by some evil forces , the visit to the god-man will cure the illness. This is also not very expensive and does not do any harm to the person , just a tip to the god-man.

If the person is still sick , the next step is to call the person who says he is a doctor , but absconds from the village when there is a search for the quack doctors . May be he was a helper with a medical doctor some time in his life. In most cases, his treatment will be a b-complex injection and a bottle of glucose via drips  in the patients house itself -  for a couple of days . This is slightly more expensive than the previous step – as it includes charges by the “doctor”,  cost of the medicine . The “doctor” gives this treatment in the patients’ house as obviously he has no clinic

If the patient does not get well by now, it is time to go in for some expensive treatments . The first visit in this segment is to visit the witchcraft practitioner. What if the patient fell sick because of some black magic done on him/her  by someone jealous of something about him/her ? Only the witchcraft practitioner can get rid of it.

Most of the time they come back and say that the witchcraft practitioner took a handful of small round balls (must have been added by the person who did black-magic on him/her) via a small pvc pipe the practitioner has - from the stomach of the patient. One end of the pipe is  inserted into the patients mouth and he sucks out from the  other end. Of course he takes the round evil balls through the pipe . This is pretty expensive , often meaning a whole months salary of any house help around here and sometimes even more

If this also does not give the desired result, then it is time to consult the astrologer. Some planet must be unhappy and is causing the sickness and he has to be appeased , so he retracts the illness . This is also reasonably expensive as it involves not only the visit but also remedial poojas done by the astrologer to appease the angry planet(s).

If even by now, nothing has helped, then think of the ‘alternative medicine’ – also in two steps. First step is to visit the medical shop, describe the symptoms and ask for medicine and most of the time they do get something. A week or so of taking these medicines.

It is a couple of months by now . If  the illness still persists , now is the time to plan a visit to the medical doctor for diagnosis and treatment

 

Wishing a speedy recovery !!!