WAYSIDE JOURNAL: An Immune India

An immune India is a wonderful dream which can certainly be realized by abolishing the misconceptions about diseases, medicines and healing that prevailed among us Indians and transferred to the next generations. It is a dream worth dreaming as every reality starts with a dream.

Over the centuries, India has proven its survival from epidemics and we, Indians, have explored various ways helping people ward off the diseases. But still we suffer from many deadly and contagious diseases and fail to diagnose them well on time and treat them before they spread widely.

Every little step to knowledge starts with ‘education’. The first and foremost lesson is the awareness of the importance of personal hygiene. The body, mind and soul must periodically be cleansed before they infect us in toto. Education starts from birth and continues till one’s death. The basic education must give emphasis on imparting the knowledge of personal hygiene and welfare.

Good habits can be taught both at schools and at homes. But these habits take a back seat as schools and, homes have simply turned into buildings and houses that emphasizes mainly on the academic performance of the children, resulting nervous wrecks. We teach them about life, but conveniently fail to tell them how to live it. We brief them about diseases, their causes and treatment, but not the ways to prevent them. The old proverb, ‘Prevention is better than cure’, stands proof to the fact that our forefathers definitely were wise to live a life that resulted good health and immunity.

Indians, today, are keener on ‘protection’ than ‘prevention’. There is no much difference in the result, though their ways of protection differ totally from one to another.

The rich keep their babies in an air-conditioned room or car, with no chance to breathe fresh air or no way to see the outside world. Everything is taken care of to the maximum so that the child is not touched by anything bad or ugly. This kind of overprotection restricts the child to get used to the real world conditions.

The poor, on the other hand, are forced to expose their babies to dust and dirt, right from the maternal ward of the hospital to their houses. Their houses invite all types of diseases from the streets and are always infected owing to their poor hygienic habits.

Indians, in general, protect their children by denying them most of the fruits and grains by blaming them for being either making the body hot or cold, thus making the babies victims of malnutrition.

Yet, the fact is that any child from any house, regardless of their ways of protection, gets sick with the same diseases. The young bodies are treated with antibiotic drugs in oral form or injection for a quick healing. Once they see the magic healing, the parents get these medicines over-the-counter, thereby skipping a physician’s consultation. These drugs, in spite of their ability to cure the child in a short span of time, reduce the body’s immunity, thereby making it vulnerable to attract bacteria and viruses. Thus, the child’s trajectory through the vicious circle of infection starts, leading it to affect the body in many ways.

Thus proves that protection from diseases is rather an illusion, whereas preventing them is the only way to good health. Educating Indians, to live healthily and to leave a healthy environment for others to live, might pave way to form a healthier India. There must be strict rules which, if not followed, will have serious repercussions. The waste disposal, spitting wherever one wants to, the serving of food products with unclean hands, reuse of cooking oil, walking barefoot on streets, indiscriminate burning of plastics at every corner, sight of vehicles without the roadworthiness certificate belching out obnoxious smoke on the road, etc. will make a never-ending list that needs to be changed. Moreover a small percentage of the population influenced by superstition put faith in the religious rituals without providing any medical treatment to their kids.

Once we attain the real sense of a clean India, we can start dreaming of an Immune India. The Immune India can only originate from every individual Indian. The immune system of a person consists of innate immunity, naturally acquired-immunity and artificially acquired-immunity. Everyone is born with an innate immunity and through fighting diseases and by periodical inoculation they acquire the other types of immunities. It is up to the individual to improve or to diminish the development of the immune system.

The immune system improves if the diseases are treated naturally. No branch of any medicine does it better than Ayurveda, which means, ‘Science of Life’. Its holistic approach of treatment stresses the importance of cleansing the mind and the body, thus building up a strong immune system.

Ayurveda is believed to be one of the oldest branches of medicine known to the humanity, which is practised rarely by Indians. It not only treats diseases but also improves the immune system, thus protecting the body from infections. If Indians go back to the traditional way of life and cure, many ailments caused by the side effects of allopathic medicines could be avoided.

What more can you give the baby than a sleep in the cloth cradle and a bathe in the natural bathtub made of the areca palm and the sweet milk of the mother? Can any baby lotion or soap made of chemicals match the coconut oil or mustard oil applied on the baby’s skin? The traditional Indian baby massage that strengthens the baby is a boon in other countries, but rare in India.

If we try and do our part, we can gift our children, a country free from all evils. Let our kids walk in clean roads. Let them listen to the songs of birds and enjoy nature’s bounty. Let them know India as a developed country. Let them know the values and culture which enrich the heart of each Indian. Let them learn music and dance of India and to be responsible to keep in mind that tomorrow’s India must be better than today’s. Let them eat home food and stop eating junk. Let them be healthy but never being obese. Let them treat their bodies with safe Ayurvedic medicines and enrich their minds with noble thoughts.

We must carry out our mission so that our children will follow our footsteps.

Our priority must be to make India a better place to live.

We must work together with a single vision.

We must trust ourselves and delve deep to find our nation’s riches.

We must keep our body, mind and soul healthy, and clean.

We must learn to live honestly and make our country immune from corruption and anti-social elements.

We should make India, an exemplary nation, a light that the whole world can follow.

We may be different in so many ways: let nothing divide us from being Indians.

Above all, we must be united not by the same religion, but in the power of Almighty.

Let me see my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren live in Immune India, the perfect gift that I can ever give them.

And let me do my part to realise my dream and leave behind an Immune India for all generations to come.

Let us go back to nature and find each treasure to save us from illness, and to heal us from sickness and to create a New India, an Immune India!

 www.daburchyawanprash.com This article is part of the competition, 'An Immune India'