The natural way

Patna, March 11: The medical sector has witnessed a real turnaround under chief minister Nitish Kumar. Its biggest indicator is the health sub-centres receiving 5,000 patients every month after he came to power. But the man who has engineered this phenomenal turnaround prefers to stick to tulsi patta (basil leaves) and a concoction of herbs and diet control to cure himself.

The chief minister was suffering from viral fever, cough and cold for the past two weeks. His ill health deterred him from attending the Assembly session and some official meetings. But now he is fit, thanks to basil leaves, jau ki roti (bread made of barley flour), boiled vegetables and green gram. Today he has gone to Nagpur and Wardha to meet his Gandhian and socialist friends.

The Telegraph got the opportunity to see the chief minister helping himself to green tea, prepared specifically under his instructions, when he was still under the weather. “The ideal way to prepare basil tea is to put the leaves in a cupful of water and keep it on the flames till the water is reduced to half,” he said showing the shining green colour of his tea.

The basil tea that Nitish took and offered us was prepared differently from the way it is usually done. Usually, people mix pepper, ginger, salt or sugar with basil leaves to make the concoction taste better. But the chief minister, who is the son of a vaidya (ayurvedic healer), explained that the tea, prepared with only basil leaves, works better.

While Nitish had spent hours with doctors at the Patna Medical College and Hospital to treat his ailing mother in November-December last year, he neither allowed doctors to attend to him nor took allopathic medicines when he fell ill. Nitish banks more on his brother, Satish Kumar, who has adopted their father’s vocation, than doctors when it comes to his own health. He relishes the concoction of herbs that Satish gives him when he is struck with viral fever, cold or allergy.

Sources close to him revealed the diet he lived on during his ailment. He ate roti, boiled vegetables of pumpkin, gourd, drank anar ka ras (pomegranate juice) and made it a point to finish his dinner before 8pm.

Nitish is a frugal eater. He eats fish and eggs in small quantity and does not touch red meat. In sharp contrast, his friend-turned-rival Lalu Prasad loves his mutton curry and egg curry. Unlike Nitish, who is hardly seen with doctors around him, Lalu was always seen with Dr N.K. Singh and Dr B.P. Singh measuring his blood pressure or taking blood for investigation.