-by Sheela Rani Chunkath
I was travelling with two other friends in the car when the discussion switched to the stomach upset that my friend’s daughter had suffered recently. She had been treated with allopathic drugs and had recovered but the father was still worried. The other friend of mine, like me is an ardent believer in ayurveda and home remedies. She immediately listed out a whole slew of remedies which would take care of the stomach upset without decimating the flora in the gut. Many people don’t realize that once a course of antibiotics finishes off the flora in the gut, it takes quite a while for the gut to be repopulated with beneficial flora. In the meantime, your digestion is badly affected.
I remember as a kid being quite unbelieving that I could get a stomach pain when I took antibiotics to cure a bad cold. Weren’t antibiotics supposed to do you good? Then why would you get a stomach pain? Wiser now, both my friend and I bombarded the young father with the various ways in which a stomach upset could be treated in a 'gut friendly' manner. My friend said that when her son was growing up, she had planted pomegranate trees in pots so that she would have pomegranate flowers whenever needed. She would clean the flower and grind it with a little turmeric and water and give a few spoonful to her son in case of a stomach upset.
She also said that the tender leaves of Amla had a similar effect. Then we explained about the astringent qualities of pomegranate and dadimashtaka churanam (about which I have written in an earlier article) and dadimashtaka gritham to the father who by this time was feeling quite overwhelmed. Choosing the ayurvedic way to treat illnesses and keeping healthy may seem a bit complicated in the begging but soon you will become familiar with the names of herbs and the various remedies to treat most minor illnesses. Most likely you will not fall ill as you would be taking preventive steps to stop a cold or viral fever from attacking you. If you have had an ice cream and your throat is itching, you will immediately do a triphala gargle. Viral fever in the neighborhood and you will take some Sudarshana tablets. A heavy wedding dinner, you will have a bit of ashta chooranam. So you will learn to take care of your health with simple remedies and sidestep that visit to the doctor.
So back to our young father who was also asked to keep some mushta arishtam at home so that he could use it if his kids had indigestion or diarrhoea.
Mushta arishtam is made from mushta or nut grass tubers and is quite tasty to drink so you won’t have much trouble persuading your kids to have it. Mushta is a farmer's enemy, though. It grows wild on my farm and is very difficult to eradicate as the tubers grow deep and extensively. I have seen dogs and cats digging and eating the tubers and have been told that they intuitively look for the mushta tubers when they are not well.
Making mushta arishta is quite easy although it is available in most ayurvedic stores also. Take about a kilo of nut grass tubers, crush and boil in about 5 litres of water. Reduce the decoction to about one fourth. Cool and filter. To this decoction add about 1.5 kgs of old jaggery. To start the fermentation process, add about 50 grams of fire flame flowers (called dhataki in Sanskrit) fire flame flowers are a must for arishtam making. To this mixture, 10 grams each of the coarse powders of ajamoda (ajowan fruits), dried ginger, black pepper, cloves, fenugreek seeds, leadwort root and cumin seeds are added and allowed to sit in a sealed earthen pot for a month. After a month the arishtam is ready. Keeping this arishtam handy can help you handle indigestion and stomach upsets quite easily. Mushta arishtam is a digestive, carminative and appetizer and is beneficial to the gut flora.
--- The writer was earlier Health Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu and is currently Additional Chief Secretary and Chairman & Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation. She can be reached at Sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail. com. Earlier articles can be accessed at http://arogyamantra.blogspot.com/