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C.J. Punnathara

Ayurveda is gaining popularity among tourists visiting Kerala. But traditional ayurvedic experts say fast-track, five-star treatment and rejuvenation packages may not yield desired results.

An ayurvedic drug manufacturing unit.

Every year, during the first week of June, the monsoon keeps its date with the Malabar Coast and the most auspicious time for ayurveda treatment and rejuvenation therapy arrives in Kerala.

While ayurveda is becoming popular from Berlin to Boston, a new and bitter controversy has erupted over the legitimacy and adoption of this centuries-old practice by Kerala's tourism industry. Currently, this non-intrusive medical system has left the portals of old ancestral homesteads and vaidyasalas and is being increasingly adopted and fostered by high profile hotel chains and massage parlours of the State — a quick and easy path to rejuvenation.

During the past decade, ayurveda has turned from a fancy to a fad among the increasing number of tourists visiting Kerala. Hence some of the major hotel chains in the State such as the Casino Group is turning one of its most exclusive properties, the Kollengode Palace, into a dedicated resort exclusively for ayurveda.

Others are not far behind. The Taj property at Kozhikode owes close to 30 per cent of its occupancy to ayurvedic rejuvenation therapies. Small and sometimes seedy ventures are putting up facades advertising their products.

This mushrooming of ayurvedic treatment and massage parlours has elicited strong criticism from the conventional and strictly orthodox practitioners. "Ayurveda is an individual-based treatment, unlike the broad spectrum generic treatment meted out in allopathy. The treatment of one individual differs from another for the same ailment," says Dr D. Ramanathan, Managing Director of Sitaram Ayurveda Pharmacy.

"We are not giving any curative prescriptions nor enrolling any patients for treatment," say spokesmen of the hospitality industry. George Dominic, Casino Group's Managing Director, is more categorical, "We do not encourage patients to come and undertake ayurvedic treatment at our facilities. We just promote the common ayurvedic rejuvenation therapy. And even this facility is undertaken under the watchful eye of a well-trained and certified ayurvedic physician.''

"But even in the rejuvenation therapy, there is hidden danger," responds Dr Ramanathan. Each individual's physical make up is unique and different. According to the old shastras of ayurveda, the body constitution of the people of the Occident (Japan, China), Indians/Africans and those of Europe are fundamentally different, with each constitutions requiring a different set of oils for massage. "If done wrongly, the treatment can bring diametrically opposite results,'' he warns.

"The ayurveda rejuvenation therapies have been on in the Coconut Lagoon property of the Casino Group for almost six years and we have not heard any complaints so far," says Dominic "It has proved to be so popular that it has been extended to all our properties. And still no complaints. From being mere tourists, people have begun to come exclusively for this rejuvenation therapy. Last year an Israeli stayed at our property for 55 days exclusively for ayurveda," he adds.

What cannot be disputed however is that there is no standardistion of the oils and extracts that are currently being produced by the ayurveda production units in the country, claims Dr Ramanathan, who is the Secretary of the Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers Association of India.

While every one of the ayurvedic medicines and oils is expected to have certain concentration, specific gravity and viscosity, there are a large number of units that are willing to produce inferior quality drugs and oils to make a quick buck.

"This is a universal problem, be it for oils used for massage or for drugs used for treatment. The quality of our treatment will be eroded if the drugs do not conform to universal standards," he says. One way of bringing in some standardisation is by making Good Manufacturing Practice Certification mandatory for all ayurveda producing units in the country, say many ayurvedic practioners.

Picture by K.K. Mustafah

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