Perhaps it has nothing to do with time. Sixty years, after all, is a speck in the life of a nation that has survived 5,000. Still, there must be something to this independence spiel. For in its short sovereign-socialist-democratic stint, India has gone from being a country whose fauna (snakes, elephants) was the subject of much marvel to being a one-stop shop for the world’s anti-Faustian quest. Economic awakening and corporeal aspirations, it seems, have not kept the country from nurturing secrets to stir the soul.

The India of ayurveda and yoga, of healing and holistic treatment, has crept past continents and into the consciousness of the western world like never before. So Madonna, Naomi Campbell and Ricky Martin have taken to calibrated breathing, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow are supping on ayurveda, while Christy Turlington sits in yogic silence within the Vanity Fair. It does seem to be getting harder to resist the lure and cures of the east.

“We are getting requests from so many countries—US, UK, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, Germany, West Indies—to send experts for training,” says Dr Dinesh Katoch, Deputy Adviser, Department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. This, besides the exchange programmes under which India deputes experts, holds seminars and workshops and conducts exhibitions across the globe, especially in European Union countries.

With 16 million Americans practising yoga and nearly 80 medical schools in the US including ayurveda as integrated modules, 3,000 ayurveda institutes in Germany, countless private yoga and ayurvedic practitioners worldwide (India has 5 lakh registered ayurveda practitioners and 225 colleges), the A&Y is redefining lifestyles and providing alternative cures to chronic maladies.

... contd.