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Understanding Ayurveda Shubhra Krishan Shubhra Krishan is a television and print journalists from India. she and her husband have been producing health series on Indian TV for a long, long time. Presently they are working on projects in the USA.

I have noticed something curious. Pick up a magazine article on Ayurveda, and you are sure to see three words: Vata, Pitta, Kapha-your doshas or body types. Mention Ayurveda to the person next door, and those words will hit your ears again. Till yesterday, I too was that person next door-never really thinking beyond those three words for they made all of Ayurveda seem so jargonistic. And then I met a vaidya.

That day, I realised that Ayurveda is not a shrunken pool with just these three lotuses floating in it. It is an ocean-vaster perhaps than any there is on the planet.

The vaidya did not ask me any questions. He just placed two delicate fingers on my wrist, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He listened intently as my body told him its inside story. One minute later, Dr. Ramakant Mishra asked me a startling question. "Have you ever had a lung problem?"

I was stupefied. Back in India, it had taken me two dozen visits to six different doctors, a series of CAT Scans and X-rays to get to that diagnosis. And here was a man who knew it in one silent minute. Was it happening?

Dr Mishra did not write out a prescription. He told me to take notes instead. All my medicines, he told me, were inside my kitchen, sitting on the spice rack. I needed to get more turmeric and use coarsely pounded coriander seeds in my cooking.

After a whole year of reeling under strong anti-biotics and their side-effects, I was only too willing to try these "medicines."

But this meeting did much more than make me interested in spices. It made me want to know more about Ayurveda. The little I knew told me to go back to Dr Mishra and ask him what my dosha was: Vata, Pitta or Kapha.

He smiled. "If you are really keen to learn about Ayurveda, the first lesson is: there is Ayurveda beyond your doshas. It is about following a lifestyle that keeps you healthy and increases your life-span. It is perhaps the only system of healing that addresses not sick but healthy people."

For the next two hours, I plumbed the depths of the Ayurvedic Ocean. I am sharing with you the gems I brought back.

The first thing to know about Ayurveda, says Dr Mishra, is that it thinks of you as a sum of your parts- your mind, your body and your spirit. Unlike Allopathy, where your body is seen as a machine to be repaired when something goes wrong.

Ayurveda believes that you are the mechanic and the healer of your own health. Once you take responsibility for its maintenance, you can live disease-free and happy forever.

Dr Mishra says it is a good idea to start with some basic tips to help you achieve this goal:

1. Think of your food as nutrition for your body, mind and soul. Eat food that connects you with the spirit of the earth. Get more grains and fruits into your diet. Throw out the milled flour and the refined sugar from your kitchen cabinet.
2. Always cook and eat hot, fresh food. Use mild, beneficial spices. They are great for digestion.
3. Eat at a healthy gap of at least four hours.
4. Combine your foods intelligently: you do know, for instance, that yogurt and vinegar are both acidic and don't go together well. And that milk combined with lime will only curdle.
5. Balance your diet. Ayurveda believes that there are six basic flavours- sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent and astringent. A balanced meal would contain all these flavours.
6. Disturbed sleep wastes Ojas or essential energy, and gets you depressed, anxious, upset and sick. To correct your sleep imbalance, start sleeping and rising early. To help you do that, eat a light dinner and have a warm bath before bedtime.

   

7. Get in touch with your "self". Try Transcendental Meditation. Spiritual leader Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's relaxation technique promises that elusive thing we're all after: bliss. What's more, it's completely effortless. Meditation is like a refreshing twenty-minute vacation.
8. Spring-clean your your Body: Every year, treat your body to Panchakarma: a healing therapy that uses essential oil and herbs to detoxify and relax your body. Trained Panchkarma experts massage and pamper your body till you feel as good as new.

Once you've started on this shining road to good health, you will notice a verve in your step, a smile in your heart. And you too will want to plunge deeper into the Ayurvedic Ocean.

For more information on Ayurveda, visit www.mapi.com

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