Miss a meal and remain healthy

IN the four years I enjoyed diplomatic privileges during my postings in London and Ottawa I did grave damage to my body. However, I also learnt that a person’s best doctor is himself. I did not have much work to do; I did not get job satisfaction from the little work I did. I had to attend far too many receptions and entertain in return. So it was gin, sherry, wines and liquors at mid-day; beer and whisky in the evenings; wines and liquors with dinners that went on late into the night. I ruined my digestive system, and with it, lost the zest for living.

After I threw up my job, I went to see a doctor. He put me through many tests and pronounced me 100 per cent fit. he also advised me to spend a few days in a nature cure clinic. So I found myself in a country mansion standing amongst sprawling acres of oak, beech and wild chestnut, about 40 miles from London. The director was a man called Leif, the house was called Champneys. The locals regarded it as some kind of nuthouse and called us Leif’s loonies or Champneys‘ chimps. The treatment was simple: Clear the stomach by enemas, oil and salt massages and lie in the sun. All I got to eat was an orange in the morning and an orange in the evening and as much warm water to drink as I could. In the 15 days I was there I lost a lot of weight. My appetite returned, my vision improved and I felt a lot better.

One myth which was exploded was that during a fast one should not exert oneself. At Champney men and women who had been living on two oranges a day for over a month played tennis every afternoon. I learnt that in Sweden 10 men walked from Gothenberg to Stockholm, a distance of over 325 miles in ten days on empty stomachs without any ill-effects. On the contrary some left fit enough to undertake the return journey on foot. When I see pictures of our netas reclining on charpoys looking pale and woebegone as they begin their ‘fasts unto death’ to be broken two days later with a much publicised ceremonial sip of orange juice, I have a hearty laugh. Our fasting netas are the world’s biggest humbugs.

I learnt a few things in Champneys. First, that the secret of good health is eating the right kind of food in right quantities. If you eat too much or eat contaminated food, you are bound to suffer from all kinds of ailments. Second, occasionally missing a meal is good for you. Third, a massage relieves tensions and tones up the system. Fourth, there is more to herbal medicines based on ayurveda and unani systems and home-remedies than is acknowledged by practitioners of conventional medicine. They, and the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry, have vested interests in keeping alive the myth that healing is their monopoly and practitioners of alternative systems of medicines, including naturopaths, are quacks.

The different ways of looking at health problems are as old as time. Ancient Greeks had two deities to represent these divergent attitudes. There was the goddess Hygeia from whom is derived the word hygiene. Her worshippers believed that good health was the norm and if you observed the rules of hygiene you would not fall ill. Naturopaths worship Hygeia. Then there is the male deity, Asclepian, who became the patron saint of doctors and pharmacists. Asclepian worshippers always outnumbered Hygeia’s. But significantly Hippocrates by whose name practitioners of allopathy swear, believed in naturopathy. He wrote: "Food should be our medicine and medicine our food."

Periodical massage is an integral part of naturopathy. I indulge in it twice a week. I do not much care for the Kerala oil massage nor for the vigorous pahelwans pounding the body. "Massage should be a pleasure which puts "treat" into the treatment," writes Stewart Mitchell in "Naturopathy: understanding the healing power of nature" (Element).

Mitchell, a sootsman, has his nature clinic in Exeter (Devon). He is a slim, tall, handsome man in his forties. He is courteous and soft-spoken and visits India regularly to update his knowledge of ayurveda, yoga and different forms of massages. Now he has a better reason to be in India more often. He has married a Bengali girl. It is ironic that while Mitchell propagates nature cure and avoidance of all allopathic drugs, his father-in-law Dr J.N. Banerjee, was head of Sandoz, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, manufacturing allopathic drugs and is likely to be appointed advisor to the Ministry of Health.

Left behind

It could be age. It could be lethargy. My reluctance to keep up with advances in communication technology has made me into an old fuddy-duddy and a misfit in the modern world. To start with, I could not come to terms with the type-writer. No great handicap as I could dictate or write in long hand and let my stenographer do the typing. Then came computers and word processors. I could not use them because I had not bothered to learn typing. Then followed an avalanche of new words relating to communication technology which innundated me: Chips, hardware software, fax, Internet, website, e-mail, C.D Roms etc. None of them made sense to me. They made sense to everyone else I knew and felt I had fallen behind in the race. I was taunted: "You waste a lot of time scribbling on your pad, having your stuff typed, corrected , re-typed, stencilled, put in envelopes to be posted. Put your pieces on a fax machine. Press one button. And hey presto: you get as many copies as you like. Or use e-mail and send your columns directly to the newspapers you write for. It’s no big deal".

I invested in a computer. I had to get another telephone connection. Between the two they occupy a lot of space in my spare room. My daughter pitched in because her needs for modern gadgetry are more pressing than mine. She got a computer guru to teach us how to handle it. Instead of one we get three gurus: Hartej Baksh Singh, a tall strapping sardarji (his father was an officer with the Indian Air Force who on retirement started an electronics business), his wife Rekha and their pretty teenage daughter. They run something called Rastrixi. All three manipulate gadgets as if playing snakes and ladders. Once Hartej slipped in a tiny disc called a CD-Rom made by them and there was Kiran Bedi telling us in her own voice about her book Its Always Possible, with pictures of what she had made possible. The family specialises in type-setting manuscripts for publishing houses like OUP, Harper-Collins, Ravi Dayal, material of the Archaeological Survey of India and the World Bank. They are now making illustrated programmes on architecture, cooking, golf and birds song. My daughter is persisting; she spends hours pressing buttons and watching the screen. It makes me feel very inadequate and oafish. I have given up the battle and reconciled myself to being left behind.

Heard in Ahmedabad

Why Gujaratis think the man who acted as Gandhi in the film is a woman?

Because his name is ‘Ben’ Kingsley.

Why do Gujaratis go to London?

To see Big Ben.

Why did the visitor to a Gujarati home run away when he was offered tea?

Because his hostess said, ‘she would serve snakes (snacks) with it.

What is a Gujarati picnic called?

A snake in the grass.

Why did the Gujarati wear a dinner jacket to his vasectomy?

If he was going to be impotent, he wanted to look impotent.

Why did the American get scared of the Gujarati?

Because he said ‘Sue kare chhe’.

Why did Bill Clinton have the Gujarati beaten up?

The Gujarati told him, you are an impotent man.

Contributed by Amir Tuteja, Washington

Khushwant Singh is away on holiday, there will be no column next week.

This feature was published on November 20, 1999