The Hindu : National : The fish medicine has its following

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

National

National

The fish medicine has its following

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, JUNE 8. Unmindful of criticism from different quarters and the efforts to demystify the famed fish medicine, the Bathini Goud family here started administering the medicine to thousands of people suffering from asthma and other respiratory ailments from early Tuesday morning. The process will continue for 24 hours.

The day, Mrigasira karti, which marks the onset of the monsoon on the Hindu calendar, started at 3.30 a.m. for the Bathini brothers who first put their secret cure, a yellow herbal paste, into the mouth of a three-cm-long Murrel fish before slipping it down the throats of their patients, a practice which reached its 159th year of existence at the sprawling Exhibition Grounds in Nampally this year.

Patients started coming in on Monday, with many camping in and around the venue and some accepting accommodation offered by non-governmental organisations.

Though the Goud family had brushed aside allegations over the scientific basis of their medicine, it appears to have had an impact on the turnout. Harinath Goud and his brother Viswanatham Goud pegged the expected number of patients at seven lakhs. But the serpentine queues, which were once the hallmark of the event, were missing during the day at the venue, which had nearly 30-odd stalls administering the `wonder asthma cure'. It was not in lakhs, but in thousands, that too in slow and broken files.

The Fisheries Department, which had procured around four lakh Murrel fish for the event, had kept half of it at the venue. Till 3.30 p.m. only about 55,000 were sold.

The Goud brothers who chose to term the low turnout as a "temporary lull in the daytime," said the number would swell in the evening and late into the night. Authorities and other organisations involved in the arrangements sought to fix the attendance between one and 1.5 lakhs, almost the same as last year's. Supporters of the Bathini family, however, argue that the queues were missing since the exercise had started in the wee hours and because most of the people chose to come when heat dipped. They expect about six lakhs patients.

Opposition

Various organisations which were opposed to the administration of the medicine alleging that it had no scientific standing or effect on patients, put up banners and distributed pamphlets at the venue, urging people not to fall prey to superstition. Rationalists' associations and a couple of student organisations were among those, which raised the anti-Bathini banner.

A team led by advocate commissioner, N. Krishnamurthy, a drug inspector and officials from the office of the Director General of Drugs and Copy Right, meanwhile collected three samples of the fish medicine for scientific analysis, as per orders of a City Civil Court last week following a petition filed by a social organisation, Jana Vignana Vedika. A report based on the results of the tests will be submitted to the court on July 1.

Other non-governmental organisations were present at the Exhibition Grounds, supplying free food and sticking to the diet prescribed by the Bathinis.

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